encyclopedia of rape - the international false rape timeline

Encyclopedia of Rape

MERRIL D. SMITHEditor

GREENWOOD PRESS

Advisory Board

Julie Campbell-RuggaardPsychologist, private practiceOxford, Ohio

Elizabeth ReisDepartment of Women’s and Gender StudiesUniversity of Oregon, Eugene

Rickie SolingerIndependent ScholarLake Mohonk, New York


Edited by MERRIL D. SMITH

GREENWOOD PRESSWestport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Encyclopedia of rape / edited by Merril D. Smith.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0–313–32687–8 (alk. paper)1. Rape—encyclopedias. I. Smith, Merril D., 1956–

HV6558.E53 2004362.883'03—dc22 2004044213

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright � 2004 by Merril D. Smith

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may bereproduced, by any process or technique, without theexpress written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004044213ISBN: 0–313–32687–8

First published in 2004

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.www.greenwood.com

Printed in the United States of America

TM

The paper used in this book complies with thePermanent Paper Standard issued by the NationalInformation Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Preface vii

Introduction ix

Chronology of Selected Rape-Related Events xiii

Alphabetical List of Entries xix

Topical List of Entries xxiii

The Encyclopedia 1

Resource Guide 273

Index 277

About the Editor and Contributors 295

Preface

This book takes a new approach to the examination and understanding of an oldproblem: rape. The subject of rape encompasses much more than the actual physicalact. There are the people involved; times and places in which rapes have takenplace; laws and customs regarding rape; movements against it; art, literature, andother cultural depictions of rape; and social and political events concerning it. Theformat of an encyclopedia is especially effective for covering this topic becausereaders can look at the specific entry or entries that interest them, as well as readingfurther in related entries.

The volume is aimed at general readers and students who desire to learn aboutrape and rape-related issues. For those who want additional information, there issuggested reading listed under each entry. Additional information can be obtainedfrom the list of resources at the end of the volume.

For two years, 79 scholars from all over the world and from a wide variety offields—the humanities, social sciences, and medicine—have gathered informationand written articles on a variety of topics concerning rape for this project. Thereare 186 entries in this encyclopedia. The coverage provides explication and descrip-tions of key terms, concepts, organizations, incidents, institutions, laws, influentialworks, theories, movements, cases, and individuals associated with rape. Althoughit is impossible to include every item of significance to the topic in a one-volumereference book, I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible. Readers will notethe emphasis in this encyclopedia is on the contemporary United States, but entriesthat are historically significant, as well as worldwide events and movements, havebeen included. The result is a volume that covers rape from antiquity to the present.

Entries are listed in alphabetical order. Readers will generally find the subjectlisted under the most common or popular name. For example, there is an entryunder the headwords “Boston Strangler” rather than under Albert DeSalvo, theman convicted of the crimes. However, readers who turn to “Albert DeSalvo” willbe directed to the appropriate entry.

Each narrative entry explains the term, gives an overview, and describes its sig-

viii PREFACE

nificance. In our rapidly changing world, new information is constantly being re-vealed, while concepts and ideas are transformed almost before our eyes. Allattempts have been made to keep the entries in the volume up to date, accurate,and consistent. Each entry contains cross-references in bold type, related entries atthe end, and a list of reading suggested by the author of each article. There is achronology of key rape events, people, and places following the Introduction. Thevolume contains a Resource Guide of books, movies, and Websites at the end andis fully indexed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks go to many people who helped in bringing this project to fruition. Theprocess began when Wendi Schnaufer, one of my editors at Greenwood Press, calledme to ask if I would be interested in editing this encyclopedia. She was extremelyhelpful in guiding me through the early stages of this work. Anne Thompson, myother editor at Greenwood, has been a careful and thoughtful reader. She’s an-swered my barrage of emails with efficiency—and sometimes just that needed bitof humor. My advisory board, Julie Campbell-Ruggaard, Elizabeth Reis, and RickieSolinger, read and offered suggestions on entries. Julie went beyond this role to actas go-between when a contributor became ill. Thanks, Julie!

I could not have completed this book without the help of the contributors whowrote entries for this volume. Some of them wrote multiple entries, and some pickedup last-minute entries and delivered polished work to me in record time. I haveenjoyed corresponding with all of you, and I have made some friends along theway.

It is indeed helpful to have a supportive and talented family, one willing to listento me discuss rape at the dinner table. Special thanks to Megan Smith for organizingmy computer files, retyping the entries that my computer ate, and doing some proof-reading. Sheryl Smith helped me organize lists and cooked some great dinners. DougSmith read entries, helped me with printing the manuscript, and kept the householdgoing while I worked.

Introduction

Rape has always been a part of human culture. The myths of antiquity includedaccounts of rape; ancient societies counted rape among the crimes listed in theirlaw codes; and even the Bible contains stories of rape. Throughout the centuries,rape has had an impact on individual women (as well as men and children of bothsexes), but it has also affected the evolution and development of cultures all overthe world, as women have been abducted as brides, claimed as prizes of war, andenslaved. Unfortunately, rape remains a concern of modern life. Recent headlinesmake this all too clear, as stories on date rape drugs, attacks by serial rapists, themolestation of children by Catholic priests, and genocidal crimes in Bosnia,Rwanda, and elsewhere pervade the media.1

The physical reality of rape has not changed over time: the penetration of avagina, or other orifice, by a penis (or other object) without the consent of thewoman or man being penetrated. What have changed over time and place are def-initions about rape, ideas, perceptions, and laws concerning it. Modern laws onsexual assault in the United States and elsewhere recognize that both women andmen can be raped, that wives can be raped by their husbands, and that victimsoften know their attackers. Although rape survivors are still sometimes blamed forprovoking their attacks, they may also find support and counseling available tothem. For much of history, however, rape has been considered a crime against thewoman’s father or husband, rather than a crime against the victim. In some areasof the world, that still holds true. In 2002, the Human Rights Commission ofPakistan reported that over 150 women had been sexually assaulted and about 40women had been killed in “honor killings” in southern Punjab.2

Within the United States, rape is all too common, but it remains an underreportedcrime, since many victims cannot or do not press charges against their attackers.However, in the last few decades, reforms in rape laws have made the processsomewhat easier for victims. For example, before the 1970s, rape shield laws andthe category of spousal rape did not exist.3

The alteration of rape laws within the United States, as well as many other coun-

x INTRODUCTION

tries, reflects changing ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as redefinitions ofrape itself. The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s helped to spur alongthese changes, as many feminists asserted that rape is a crime of violence that threat-ens all women. In her influential 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women andRape, Susan Brownmiller argued that rape is “nothing more or less than a consciousprocess of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”4

Against Our Will was the first major history of rape. Since its publication, scholarlyinterest in rape, the study of rape, and the history of rape has grown tremendously.

Yet stigmas against discussing rape and stigmas against rape victims remain. Thetopic still elicits smirks and innuendo, or religious or moral pronouncements, whileactual cases often get bogged down in accounts of “he said/she said.” Legal scholarLeslie Francis notes, “Rape is criminal. Rape is gendered. Rape is sexual. In yetanother three-word sentence, rape is controversial.”5 But rape is controversial pre-cisely because it is a crime that involves sex acts.

At the same time, today there seems to be more freedom to discuss both rapeand its effects on victims and survivors. Several survivors of rape have publishedstories of their ordeals within the last few years. In 2003, for example, Trisha Meili,who previously had been known only as the Central Park Jogger, published anaccount detailing her experiences since her 1989 attack.6

Within the United States, the history of rape is tangled with and connected torace. Native American women were raped first by European explorers who as-saulted them and enslaved them as they conquered the Americas. Later, white set-tlers pushed indigenous people westward and sometimes considered the women theyencountered as fair game or prizes. African women were first brought to what isnow the United States as slaves in the early seventeenth century. Masters ownedtheir bodies and could use them sexually whenever they wanted to. Their “other-ness” both attracted white men and permitted them to portray black women assexually voracious. This had an effect on white women, too, who were idealized asasexual and pure but who had to pretend they did not know what their husbands,fathers, brothers, and sons were doing. Black men, too, were affected by racial andsexual myths both during slavery when they could not protect their female lovedones and later in their post–Civil War freedom when they were depicted as lustingafter white women. This fear of the “black beast” became particularly strong fromabout 1890 to 1920 and led to the lynching of many black men.

White men, who have considered them “available” for sex because of their “ex-oticism,” or subservience, have also dominated some Hispanic women and AsianAmerican women. The growing populations of Asian Americans and Hispanics inthe United States have led to rape counseling services becoming more aware ofproblems within those groups. However, the terms Asian American and Hispanicencompass many different groups of people, and therefore it is not easy or evenfair to make generalizations about these groups. Some rape crisis centers now offercounseling and legal services in several languages and employ counselors who arefamiliar with a variety of cultures. In addition to problems they may face fromwithin their own cultures, increased sometimes by the inability to speak English,and/or inhibited by cultural beliefs or taboos, many subgroups within the UnitedStates may suffer sexual abuse and not know or be able to report it—or may beafraid to do so.

Besides those based on language, race, and ethnicity, subgroups of rape victimsmay include gays and lesbians, prisoners of either sex, and the disabled, among

INTRODUCTION xi

others. Rape crises services, law enforcement agencies, and laws now recognize thatit is not just young women who are the victims of sexual assaults. Men, who mayor may not be gay, rape other men. Children, too, are victimized. Often their mo-lesters are not caught, but the recent publicity concerning the molestation of chil-dren by Catholic priests over several decades has focused public awareness on thiscrime. Child pornography is a growing problem, too, and it has spread due to theavailability of Internet sites. The trafficking and slavery of women, men, and chil-dren have made sexual slavery and pornography a global industry.

From legitimate reporting of news events to plays, such as The Vagina Mono-logues, and literature, such as The Color Purple, to shock advertisements and themost violent pornography, depictions and coverage of rape permeate U.S. culture.Some people will say that it is too much, and to them, no doubt, the idea of anEncyclopedia of Rape is controversial, if not unnecessary. I would argue otherwise.It is all the more necessary. By discussing the particulars of rape—specific events,concepts, or people involved—readers can better understand rape as not just a sexact but a crime with real victims. Furthermore, they will learn that there are manydefinitions and permutations of sexual assault. Understanding the various aspectsof rape and how rape has occurred in many different situations and contexts inreal life throughout history is the goal of this book. In other words, the purpose ofthis volume is to educate people about rape.

Rape appears in many guises. There is the actual physical act of rape, which hasbeen defined in various ways and in various places to include only virgins, onlywomen, and only women who have cried out loudly enough to attract witnesses.Regulation of sexuality and punishment of rape has come about through beliefs,laws, and tribal customs. Rape victims may be young or old, male or female, andof any racial group. But rape also appears in art, literature, movies, and mythology,and rape occurs on dates, in marital beds, in prisons, and during war. I have triedto include all these aspects of rape in this encyclopedia.

NOTES

1. See, for example, Glenna Whitley, “He Drugged and Raped Me—and I Couldn’t ProveIt,” Glamour (December 2002): 214–217, 242–245; “Center City Rapist,” http://www.nbc10.com/news/1413685/detail.html; The Boston Globe: Spotlight Investigation Abuse inthe Catholic Church, http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/; Human Rights Watch,http://www.hrw.org.

2. “Rape ‘Common’ in Punjab,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.uk/1/hi/world/southasia/2144241.stm.

3. Susan Estrich, “Rape Shield Laws Aren’t Foolproof,” http://www.usatoday.co/news/opinion/editorials/20003-07-27-estrich_x.htm; “Spousal Rape Laws: 20 Years Later,” TheNational Center for Victims of Crime, http://www.ncvc.org/policy/issues/spousalrape.

4. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: FawcettColumbine, 1975), 15. One Internet site consists of a bibliography of rape. See “History ofRape: Bibliography,” compiled by Stefan Blaschke, http://de.geocities.com/history_guide/horb/index.html.

5. Leslie Francis, ed., Date Rape: Feminism, Philosophy, and the Law (University Park:Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), vii.

6. Trisha Meili, I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Study of Hope and Possibility (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 2003).

Chronology of SelectedRape-Related Events

c. 1780 b.c.e. Code of Hammurabi is written. This famous Babylonian law codedeclared that a virgin was innocent if raped, but that her attackershould be executed. Married women who were raped were consideredto be guilty of adultery and could be executed along with their at-tackers.

c. 1650–1500 b.c.e. Code of the Nesilim is written. This ancient Hittite law code includeda law stating that a woman who was raped within her own housecould be executed.

c. 1075 b.c.e. Code of Assura is written. This ancient Assyrian law code permitteda husband to kill or punish his wife if she was raped.

c. 990 b.c.e. King David’s daughter, Tamar, is raped by her brother.

c. 750 b.c.e. Legendary Rape of the Sabine Women takes place following thefounding of Rome.

c. 621 b.c.e. Book of Deuteronomy in the Bible includes laws regarding rape.

c. 509 b.c.e. Legendary Rape of Lucretia takes place following the expulsion of theKings of Rome.

429 b.c.e. Hippocratic Oath initiates the start of ethical opposition to sexualencounters in the doctor-patient relationship.

426 c.e. Christian philosopher Augustus states the purpose of marriage is pro-creation.

629 Muslims recognize authority of the Sharia, a complex system of lawsand prohibitions and requirements, similar to the Jewish Talmud.

700s Lady Yeshe Tsogyel, a Tibetan princess and Tantric Buddhist, greetsher rapists and transforms the rape into a means of enlightenment forthem.

xiv CHRONOLOGY OF SELECTED RAPE-RELATED EVENTS

1275 Statute of Westminster I (Clause 13) is written. This English statutemade the rape of any woman, virgin or married, a crime. Those foundguilty were to be imprisoned for two years.

1285 Statute of Westminster II (Clause 9) is written. This law strengthenedthe earlier law and sentenced the rapist to death.

1492 Christopher Columbus crosses the Atlantic, leading Europeans to“discover” people, animals, and plants, formerly unknown to them,as well as leading to the exploitation and enslavement of those people.

1559–1562 Titian paints the Rape of Europa.

1618 Peter Paul Rubens paints the Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus.

1619 Slave ships first bring African slaves to Jamestown, Virginia.

1736 Sir Matthew Hale writes History of the Pleas of the Crown, whichinfluenced rape law until the late twentieth century. Hale stated thatrape “is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved.”

1765–1769 Sir William Blackstone writes Commentaries on the Laws of England.This work had a profound effect on how rape was prosecuted andhow rape victims were treated.

1838 In People v. Abbott, New York State, a woman accuses a marriedminister of rape. He is acquitted because the state’s three conditionswere not met: the woman must be of good reputation; the womanmust show evidence of physical resistance; and the woman must havetried to call for help.

1854 In People v. Morrison, New York State, the court declares that thewoman must resist by using all of her natural abilities. In the absenceof such resistance, there is no rape.

1856–1939 Sigmund Freud’s influential theories associate women with passivityand masochism.

1873 Comstock Act prohibits distribution of materials deemed obscene, in-cluding information on contraception to rape victims.

1892 Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors is published. It protests the lynchingof black men who are often falsely accused of raping white women.

1916 The movie Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1916) depicts a bestialblack man intent on raping a virginal white woman.

1931 In the Scottsboro Boys case, two white women claim to be raped bynine African American men on a freight train. One woman later re-cants. Several trials result.

Thalia Massie is raped in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her husband is tried formurdering one of the alleged rapists, and renowned attorney ClarenceDarrow represents him in a widely publicized trial.

1932–1946 The Japanese capture and imprison thousands of women in “comfortstations,” where they are forced to have sex with Japanese soldiersand sailors.

1937 Rape of Nanking, China, by Japanese takes place.

CHRONOLOGY OF SELECTED RAPE-RELATED EVENTS xv

1938 In November, Kristallnacht riots are organized by Nazis againstGerman Jews. Instances of rape of Jewish women occur.

1942 The first rape in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) (WorldWar II) that leads to a military trial, conviction, and prison sentencetakes place in Melling, Lancashire, England. The assailant was black,the woman white.

1944 The first execution for rape in the ETO takes place. Two black menare executed on August 11, 1944, in the over-300-year-old prison thatthe United States had taken over in Shepton Mallet, England (nearBath).

1944–1945 Helene Deutsch’s Psychology of Women is published. This work isnotable for its view that female psychology is characterized by mas-ochism and rape fantasies.

1962–1964 Rape-murders are attributed to the Boston Strangler.

1963 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is published. This influentialwork focused on the alienation felt by many suburban housewivesduring this time.

1964 The rape-murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City is ignored by38 witnesses.

1966 National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded.

1968 U.S. soldiers rape, murder, and pillage My Lai in Vietnam.

1971 First public speak-out against rape takes place at St. Clement’s Epis-copal Church in New York City.

1972 First rape crisis center opens in Berkeley, California.

1973 U.S. Supreme Court legalizes abortion in Roe v. Wade.

1975 Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will, a landmark book on rape, ispublished.

In Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn, the Court rules that newagencies have a constitutional right to publish the names of rape vic-tims.

1977 Nebraska becomes the first state to include marital rape within rapelaws.

In Coker v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that capital pun-ishment in rape cases is unconstitutional.

early 1980s The first cases of sexual abuse by clergy of all faiths begin to surface.

1982 New York legislature eliminates the physical resistance requirementin rape cases.

1983 The Big Dan’s Tavern case investigates the gang rape of a woman inNew Bedford, Massachusetts.

1984 Four out of the six men prosecuted in the Big Dan’s Tavern case areconvicted.

xvi CHRONOLOGY OF SELECTED RAPE-RELATED EVENTS

Weishaupt v. Commonwealth is the first Virginia case of marital rapeto deny spousal exclusion.

1986 American college freshman Jeanne Ann Clery is violently raped andmurdered in her Lehigh University (Pennsylvania) dormitory room.

Federal Sexual Abuse Act is passed.

1987 North Dakota passes date rape bill.

Real Rape by Susan Estrich is published. This influential book arguedthat rape by someone known to the victim is just as real as rape bya stranger.

1989 Central Park Jogger Case. In this highly publicized case, a white fe-male investment banker was raped, beaten, and left for dead in Cen-tral Park in New York City.

Glen Ridge (New Jersey) case involves sexual assault of a mentallyretarded young woman by popular high school athletes.

1990s More cases of sexual abuse by clergy come to light; there is civil liti-gation by survivors.

1990 The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, also knownas the Student Right to Know and Campus Security Act (Clery Act),is passed. This act requires federally funded colleges and universitiesto publicly report all campus crimes, including rape.

1991 In Michigan v. Lucas, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the state’s rapeshield law.

During the Tailhook Convention, male naval aviators sexually harassand molest female naval officers and nonmilitary personnel duringnightly gauntlets.

1991–1995 During the Balkans War, thousands of women are raped and impreg-nated.

1992 Campus Sexual Assault Victims Bill of Rights is passed to prevent rapesurvivors at college campuses from being revictimized. It also requirescolleges and universities to inform victims of sexual assault of theiroption to report their assault to law enforcement outside of the cam-pus.

Boxer Mike Tyson is convicted of raping Desiree Washington.

1993 North Carolina and Oklahoma are the last states to abolish the spou-sal exemption clauses in rape laws when spouses are living together.

1994 Megan’s Law is passed in New Jersey, followed by similar laws beingpassed in other states establishing registration of sex offenders andcommunity notifications.

Federal Violence against Women Act (VAWA) is passed.

1995 Violence against Women Office opens as part of the U.S. Departmentof Justice.

1996 Federal version of Megan’s Law is passed.

Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act is passed.

CHRONOLOGY OF SELECTED RAPE-RELATED EVENTS xvii

1997 United States v. Lanier declares rape by a government official violatesthe Fourteenth Amendment.

1998 Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and CampusCrimes Statistics Act is passed.

During Rwandan war trials, the United Nations declares that rape isa crime of genocide.

2000 Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act is passed.

2002 Crisis of priest pedophilia comes to a head in Boston Archdiocese andothers; new policy and procedures are developed with some nationaloversight by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision overturns criminalization of sodomy be-tween consenting adults.

Police in Europe and the United States make numerous arrests of peo-ple alleged to be involved in Internet child pornography networks.

Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado allege that sexualasaults have taken place over a period of many years and charge theacademy commanders of ignoring them.

2004 Rapes of U.S. servicewomen on Air Force bases in the Pacific AirCommand and on other bases are investigated.

Marc Dutroux is tried for kidnapping, raping, and murdering fourgirls in Belgium in the 1990s. He says he is part of a large pedophilering.

Alphabetical List of Entries

Abduction (Kidnapping)

Abortion

Advertising

African Americans

African Women and Girls

Against Our Will

Alcohol

Anal Sex

Ancient Law Codes

Art

Asian Americans

Athletes

Battered Women

Bestiality

Bible, Old Testament

Big Dan’s Tavern Case

Blackstone, Sir William

“Blaming the Victim” Syndrome

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Boston Strangler

Brownmiller, Susan

Campus Rape

Campus Security Act (Clery Act)

Castration

Celebrity Rapists

Central Park Jogger

Child Rape

Clergy, Counseling by

Clergy, Sexual Abuse by

Clery, Jeanne Ann

Clothing

Comfort Women

Computers and the Internet

Comstock Act

Consent

Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn

Credibility

Date Rape/Acquaintance Rape

Deutsch, Helene

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

DNA Collection and Evidence

Domestic Violence

Droit du seigneur

Drug-Induced Rape Prevention andPunishment Act of 1996

Dworkin, Andrea

Ecstasy

Ejaculation

Ethnic Cleansing

Fairy Tales

xx ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ENTRIES

Family

Fantasies

Feminist Movement

Films, Foreign

Films, U.S.

Forcible Rape

Foreign-Object Rape

Fraternities

Free Love Movement

Freud, Sigmund/Freudian Theory

Friedan, Betty

Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB)

Gang Rape

Gays and Lesbians

Gender Roles

Genocide

Genovese, Kitty

Geographic Profiling

Glen Ridge (NJ) Rape Case

Hale, Sir Matthew

Hispanics/Latinos

HIV/AIDS

Homoeroticism

Homosexual Rape

Hospitals and Nursing Homes

Incest

Indentured Servitude

Infanticide

Interracial Rape

Ketamine

Kinsey, Alfred C.

Law Enforcement

Legislation, Illegal Sex Acts

Legislation, Sexual Harassment

Literature, World and American

Machismo

MacKinnon, Catharine A.

Male Rape

Marital Rape

Massie Case

Media

Megan’s Law

Memoirs

Mental Disabilities, People with

Michigan v. Lucas

Morning-After Pill

Murder

My Lai

Mythology

National Crime Victimization Survey(NCVS)

National Organization for Women(NOW)

Native Americans

Nazis

New York Radical Feminists (NYRF)

Okinawa Rape Case

Oral Sex

Paglia, Camille

Paternity Testing

Patriarchy

Pedophilia

Physicians/Medical Professionals

Pogrom

Popular Culture

Pornography

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Pregnancy

Prison Rape

Profiling

Prosecution

Prostitution

Race and Racism

Rape, Causes of

Rape, Definitions of

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN)

Rape Counseling

Rape Crisis Centers

Rape Culture

Rape Education

Rape History in the United States:Seventeenth Century

Rape History in the United States:Eighteenth Century

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ENTRIES xxi

Rape History in the United States:Nineteenth Century

Rape History in the United States:Twentieth Century

Rape Kit

Rape Law

Rape-Lynch Scenario

Rape Myths

Rape of Lucretia

Rape of Nanking

Rape of the Sabine Women

Rape Prevention

Rape Shield Laws

Rape Statistics

Rape Trauma Syndrome

Rape Trials

Real Rape

Religion

Resistance

Rohypnol

Roiphe, Katie

Rules of Evidence

Schools

Scottsboro Boys Case

Secondary Rape

Seduction

Self-defense/Self-defense Courses

Serial Rape and Serial Rapists

Sex Offenders

Sexual Abuse Act of 1986

Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault, Drug-Facilitated

Sexual Coercion

Sexual Double Standard

Sexual Harassment

Sexual Mutilation

Sexual Predators

Slavery

Sodomy

Southern Rape Complex

Statutory Rape

Steinem, Gloria

Stigma

Survivors

Tailhook Convention of 1991

Take Back the Night Movement

Theater

Torture

Trafficking in Women and Children

Tribal Customs and Laws

United States v. Lanier

U.S. Military

Victims

Violence against Women Act (VAWA)

Virgins/Virginity

Voyeurism

War Crimes

Wartime Rape

Wells, Ida B.

Topical List of Entries

Arts and Media

Advertising

Art



Films, Foreign

Films, U.S.

Media

Popular Culture

Pornography

Theater

Children and Family

Child Rape



Consent

Domestic Violence

Family

Incest

Infanticide

Marital Rape

Morning-After Pill

Paternity Testing

Pedophilia

Pregnancy

Statutory Rape


College, University, School

Campus Rape


Fraternities

Schools

Counseling and Education


Rape Counseling

Rape Crisis Centers

Rape Education

Culture and Cultural Beliefs


Gender Roles

Machismo

Popular Culture

Race and Racism

Rape Culture

Rape Myths

Religion

xxiv TOPICAL LIST OF ENTRIES



Drugs and Alcohol

Alcohol


Ecstasy

Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB)

Ketamine

Rohypnol

Sexual Assault, Drug-Facilitated

Health and Science

Abortion



HIV/AIDS

Hospitals and Nursing Homes


Morning-After Pill

Paternity Testing

Physicians/Medical Professionals


Pregnancy

Rape Kit

Rape Trauma Syndrome

History

Ancient Law Codes

Comfort Women

Droit du seigneur

Ethnic Cleansing

Genocide

Infanticide

Massie Case

My Lai

Nazis

Okinawa Rape Case

Pogrom

Rape History in the United States:Seventeenth Century

Rape History in the United States:Eighteenth Century

Rape History in the United States:Nineteenth Century


Rape of Lucretia

Rape of Nanking




War Crimes

Wartime Rape

Individuals

Blackstone, Sir William

Boston Strangler

Brownmiller, Susan

Central Park Jogger

Clery, Jeanne Ann

Deutsch, Helene

Dworkin, Andrea


Friedan, Betty

Genovese, Kitty

Hale, Sir Matthew

Kinsey, Alfred C.

MacKinnon, Catharine A.

Paglia, Camille

Roiphe, Katie

Steinem, Gloria

Wells, Ida B.

Law and Legal Issues

Ancient Law Codes

Campus Security Act (Clery Act)

Comstock Act



Drug-Induced Rape Prevention andPunishment Act of 1996

Geographic Profiling

Law Enforcement

Legislation, Illegal Sex Acts

Legislation, Sexual Harassment

TOPICAL LIST OF ENTRIES xxv

Marital Rape

Megan’s Law

Michigan v. Lucas

Profiling

Prosecution

Rape Kit

Rape Law

Rape Shield Laws

Rape Trials

Real Rape

Rules of Evidence

Secondary Rape

Sexual Abuse Act of 1986



Violence against Women Act (VAWA)

Literature and Nonfiction

Against Our Will

Bible, Old Testament

Fairy Tales

Literature, World and American

Memoirs

Mythology

Real Rape

Organizations and Movements

Feminist Movement

Free Love Movement

National Organization for Women(NOW)

New York Radical Feminists (NYRF)

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN)


Take Back the Night Movement

Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and SexualOrientation

African Americans

African Women and Girls

Asian Americans

Ethnic Cleansing

Gays and Lesbians

Gender Roles

Hispanics/Latinos

Homosexual Rape

Native Americans

Race and Racism

Rape Cases

Big Dan’s Tavern Case

Boston Strangler

Clery, Jeanne Ann


Genovese, Kitty

Glen Ridge (NJ) Rape Case

Massie Case

Megan’s Law

Michigan v. Lucas

Okinawa Rape Case



Rape Categories

Campus Rape

Child Rape


Forcible Rape

Foreign-Object Rape

Gang Rape

Homosexual Rape

Incest

Interracial Rape

Male Rape

Marital Rape

Prison Rape

Secondary Rape


Sexual Assault

Statutory Rape

Wartime Rape

Rape-Related Concepts

Castration

Clothing

xxvi TOPICAL LIST OF ENTRIES

Consent

Credibility

Gender Roles

Machismo

Patriarchy

Race and Racism

Rape, Causes of

Rape, Definitions of

Rape Culture

Rape Education

Rape-Lynch Scenario

Rape Myths

Rape Prevention

Rape Statistics

Seduction

Sexual Coercion

Sexual Double Standard


Stigma

Rape-Related Crimes


Battered Women

Bestiality

Castration

Incest

Murder

Pedophilia

Pornography

Prosecution

Prostitution

Rape Kit

Rape-Lynch Scenario

Sexual Assault

Sexual Coercion

Sexual Harassment

Sexual Mutilation

Torture


Rapists

Athletes

Celebrity Rapists


Pedophilia


Sex Offenders

Sexual Predators

Sex and Sexuality

Anal sex

Bestiality

Ejaculation

Fantasies


Gender Roles

Homoeroticism

Incest

Machismo

Oral Sex

Seduction

Sodomy

Virgins/Virginity

Voyeurism

Slavery and Forced Servitude

Child Rape

Comfort Women

Consent

Indentured Servitude

Prostitution

Resistance

Slavery


Survival and Coping after Rape

Abortion


Consent


Infanticide


Rape Counseling

Rape Crisis Centers

Resistance

Self-defense/Self-defense Courses

Stigma

TOPICAL LIST OF ENTRIES xxvii

Victims/Survivors

Battered Women


Central Park Jogger

Comfort Women


National Crime Victimization Survey(NCVS)

Stigma

Survivors

Victims

Virgins/Virginity

War and Military


Bosnia-Herzegovina

Comfort Women

Ethnic Cleansing

Genocide

My Lai

Nazis

Okinawa Rape Case

Pogrom

Rape of Lucretia

Rape of Nanking


Tailhook Convention of 1991

Torture

U.S. Military

War Crimes

Wartime Rape

A

ABDUCTION (KIDNAPPING). The words abduct and kidnap derive from bor-rowed Latin and Scandinavian words stems. The first recorded uses of kidnap inthe English language appear in the seventeenth century, while abduct appears inthe nineteenth century. Today, while legal definitions and terms of the words varyworldwide, common usage refers to taking someone away illegally through forceor fraud, with intent to prevent liberation. Abductors usually kidnap with the pur-pose of carrying out one or more other crimes, such as rape, robbery, murder, ora combination thereof.

Abduction and kidnapping existed long before the seventeenth century, especiallywith regard to rape during wartime. Historically, conquered peoples were consid-ered war spoils and were enslaved. Women were abducted, raped, and deemedwives or concubines of their captors.

Ancient Hebrews captured and made foreign women concubines. Ancient Greeksnabbed and raped women during wartime and made them wives and concubines.Thirteenth-century warlord Genghis Khan returned from conquered tribes with thewives of chieftains. Khan defined a man’s highest function as ruining enemiesthrough seizure of possessions and women. In fifteenth-century England, soldiersoften gained control of a woman’s property through sexual seizure. During theAmerican Revolution, British soldiers abducted women and carried out rapes inwar encampments.

Anthropological accounts from the early to the middle twentieth century indicategang rapes of women captured by Yanomamo raiding parties in Venezuela andsexual abduction of women in Kenya by Gusii tribesmen who could not affordbride prices. In the late twentieth century, rape was used as a systematic wartimetool of intimidation and genocide in Rwanda, Africa, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ser-bian forces organized widespread imprisonment of Muslim and Croat women indetention centers and military brothels, where they endured multiple rapes. An es-timated 50,000 women and girls were systematically raped.

Today, the majority of worldwide victims of abduction are abducted from, taken

2 ABORTION

to, and moved in vehicles. In the United States, over 35,000 children are abductedannually. Of those, 65 percent of nonfamily kidnapping victims are female. Sexualpredators often use ruses to gain compliance and lure away children.

Kidnapping is a sudden ordeal that victims do not anticipate. Victims are oftentoo shocked and terrorized to cry for help or resist. Some abductors are motivatedto kidnap and rape out of a desire for power and control. They frequently useknives, guns, and threats to intimidate and force. Violence may be used even if avictim is passive.

Abductors often fantasize about, or perceive an imaginary relationship with, vic-tims, who endure hours or days of fear. Trauma normally experienced in a rapesituation is intensified and prolonged. There may be multiple rapes by one or morecaptors. The likelihood of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is increased in sex-ual abduction cases and multiple rape cases.

Facing constant emotional and physical violence, victims survive by using tech-niques such as praying, finding routine, and creating relationships with abductors.When attempting to create a relationship with a captor, the victim often sharespersonal anecdotes and family stories. Listening thoughtfully can reassure the captorthat the victim is not a threat. Building a relationship is important when victimsare forced to wear hoods to cover their heads, as a hood might psychologicallytransform the victim from a person to an object in the captor’s mind, therebymaking murder easier. Surviving three or more days increases chances of beingreleased alive. See also: Comfort Women; Rape of the Sabine Women; WartimeRape.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: First Ballantine Books, 1993); Caroline Moorehead, Hostages to Fortune: A Study ofKidnapping in the World Today (New York: Atheneum, 1980).

ELIZABETH JENNER

ABORTION. Abortion is the “intentional termination of gestation by any meansand at any time during pregnancy from conception to full term,” according to JamesMohr (viii). In 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion for all women in theUnited States, but from the middle of the nineteenth century until the late 1960s,when many states began to liberalize their abortion laws, a rape victim in the UnitedStates was barred by law from obtaining an abortion. Prior to the mid-nineteenthcentury, abortion laws in the United States, as in many European countries, heldthat the fetus did not become a human being until after quickening, sometimeduring the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, when a pregnant woman first sensedmovement in her womb. This sensation marked the moment, experts believed, whenthe soul or human form entered the fetus. Abortion prior to quickening was neithersin nor crime and was not differentiated from spontaneous miscarriage.

Rape victims sought and obtained abortions prior to quickening, but a bizarremedical and legal misunderstanding of the relationship between rape and pregnancycharacterized the colonial period and persisted well into the twentieth century. Im-porting medical beliefs widespread in England, colonists, and later Americans, as-sumed that a woman could become pregnant only if she experienced orgasm duringintercourse: A raped woman could not, by definition, become pregnant. Althoughby the end of the eighteenth century scientists challenged the validity of an inexo-rable link between pleasure and procreation, medical experts often ignored new

ABORTION 3

findings, or simply modified traditional views, to insist some measure of femaleconsent and pleasure was essential to pregnancy.

In the colonial era and beyond, women turned to an array of means to endconception and restore menstruation, relying upon such herbs as savin, tansy, ergot,pennyroyal, snakeroot, and black cohosh. They also adopted other methods: inter-nal douching, bloodletting, severe physical exertion, hot baths, cathartics, even joltsof electricity. By the time of the American Revolution, abortifacient drugs becamecommercialized, and during the early nineteenth century abortion providers per-formed relatively safe instrumental abortions.

However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the seemingly widespread phenomenonof abortion began to spark concern among public leaders. Increasingly, abortionseekers were married, native-born, middle- and upper-class Protestant women,rather than the unmarried, seduced young women who evoked public sympathy.The confluence of nativist fears about growing numbers of Irish Catholics, whogenerally had large families, and the plunging family size among native-born whiteAmericans, sexist anxieties about the rise of the women’s movement, and the self-interests of the fledgling American Medical Association, formed in 1847, workedto undermine the hitherto approval of abortion. During the 1850s and 1860s, theAmerican Medical Association launched a crusade to outlaw abortion. Between1860 and 1890, state legislatures criminalized abortion, though a number of statestatutes provided a “therapeutic exception” that allowed abortion to save awoman’s life and, in some states, a woman’s health. In no state was rape acceptedas grounds for abortion. However, many women did find friends, relations, skilledphysicians, and other practitioners who endorsed or secretly assisted abortion whentheir circumstances dictated it. Rape was such a circumstance. After World War II,a number of hospitals around the country established hospital abortion committeesthat reviewed abortion requests and generally allowed “therapeutic abortions” forwomen who had been raped.

During the illegal era, some unscrupulous physicians and others sexually or fi-nancially exploited vulnerable women in exchange for providing abortions. In somehospitals, women, including some rape victims, could obtain abortions only afteragreeing to be sterilized at the same time. In part, this was because rape survivorswere frequently perceived to be sexually promiscuous. Those who could not finddoctors or anyone else to help them end unwanted pregnancies sometimes self-aborted, often permanently damaging or even killing themselves in the process.

Unease over abortion laws grew increasingly visible by the late 1950s. Progressivedoctors and lawyers attacked the amorphous, capriciously applied therapeutic ex-ception and sympathized with pregnant rape victims. Members of the AmericanLegal Institute proposed a Model Law calling for abortion law reform to enableraped women who became pregnant to have a legal abortion. During the 1960s, aplethora of nationwide initiatives arose to reform or repeal abortion statutes. Thisbroad-based movement climaxed with the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decisions inRoe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. State criminal abortion laws were judged uncon-stitutional for violating the rights of women and doctors. These decisions, however,did not address issues of economic inequality among women and access to abor-tions, nor was the decision to abort placed wholly within women’s control. Since1973, despite abortion’s legality, state legislation and court decisions responding toa powerful and, at times, violent antiabortion movement seriously hamperedwomen’s freedom to secure an abortion.

4 ACQUAINTANCE RAPE

Key developments in medical science in recent decades introduced new ways forrape victims to prevent or halt pregnancy. Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, arape survivor could turn to emergency contraception, known as the “morning-afterpill,” to be taken within 72 hours of intercourse or rape. Emergency contraceptionblocks ovulation, or if ovulation has already taken place, the pills thwart fertiliza-tion by preventing the fertilized egg from attaching itself to the uterine wall. Accessto emergency contraception, however, is limited; many pharmacies and hospitalsfear antiabortion protest.

If a rape victim cannot take advantage of emergency contraception, her alterna-tive is a chemical abortifacient, mifepristone (mifeprex), formerly known as RU-486, which the Federal Drug Administration deemed safe and effective in 1996.This pill blocks progesterone, the hormone essential for a fertilized egg to survivein the wall of the uterus. After taking the pill, the woman later inserts vaginallyfour tablets of misoprostol to trigger uterine contractions, which approximatelyfour hours later expel the uterine lining with its gestational sac or embryo. As theshifting course of abortion history reveals, the future of abortion pills and abortionrights remains unstable, highly dependent on court and legislature decisions. Seealso: Infanticide; Physicians/Medical Professionals.

Suggested Reading: Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves forthe New Century (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998); Angus McLaren, ReproductiveRituals (New York: Methuen, 1984); James C. Mohr, Abortion in America (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1978); Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1997); Joan R. Schroedel, Is the Fetus a Person? (Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 2000).

JOYCE AVRECH BERKMAN

ACQUAINTANCE RAPE. See Date Rape/Acquaintance Rape.

ADVERTISING. In cutthroat competition with each other for consumer attention,merchandisers have increasingly turned to images of sex and violence. While overtacts of rape are considered too crude for magazine and television advertising, thesuggestion of sexual violence may make a casual viewer pause long enough toregister a brand name. “Rape,” comments Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth, “isthe current advertising metaphor” (79). Shocking the reader into momentary en-gagement through depictions of sexual transgression can harness the tremendouspower of negative publicity. If controversy leads to widespread brand recognition,then the campaign was a success.

The elements of an ad that imply rape may be subtle, but taken altogether themessage of sexual violation becomes clear. One ad depicts a woman lying acrossthe seat of an abandoned car with her legs dangling out the door in an unnaturalpose. Her clothes and stockings are torn, and her face is turned away. This ad ismarketing the bag that sits open on the dirt beside her inert, shoeless foot. Anotherad shows a black-and-white alley scene with three young men. Between them is awoman who is suspended off the ground by the back of her jeans while a secondman grabs her arm and a third holds her leg. The scene is shot as if caught midac-tion. Although the product is jeans, the various elements of the ad suggest a gangrape.

Often rape is only one possible interpretation of an advertisement. In an ad for

AFRICAN AMERICANS 5

perfume, a nude woman reposes on an antique love seat. Her stark white skin iscontrasted by vivid red lips. With her head turned slightly into the shadows, it isdifficult to tell if her closed eyes are covered in dark makeup or if her face is bruised.One arm is twisted behind her back in a position that would be uncomfortable ifshe were asleep, which raises the question of whether she is even alive. At firstglance, the woman appears to be lying peacefully. It is not until the finer details ofthe ad are taken into consideration that the possibility of sexual violence becomesapparent.

Yet, should an advertiser take responsibility for every petty little element, mostespecially when the details hint at charges as serious as rape? Can one read toomuch into an ad? The average commercial costs half a million dollars to produceand air. In the production phase, thousands of photographs are taken and miles ofvideo are shot. These images are judged, rejected, resized, electronically manipu-lated, and finally rendered as a finished advertisement. The ads are often relayedback and forth between the ad team, agency executives, the sponsor’s marketingdivision, and their upper-level management. Companies spend over $200 billion ayear on campaigns designed by advertising professionals in the hope that they willcapture a sizable piece of the trillion-dollar global market. When the stakes are thathigh and the process so expensive and laborious, there is no question that everyelement is indeed intentional.

An image sponsored by a shoe company shows the back of a woman runningon rough, wet pavement at dusk. She wears a midlength dark coat, stockings, andspike-heeled boots. Her face expresses concern, if not alarm, as she glances overher shoulder at whoever is behind her. Since the scene is shot from the reader’spoint of view, the pursuer is you. In response to questions about who such ads aredesigned for, advertisers claim that these images play with fantasies. Ads, they say,simply participate in the wider culture’s idolization of wealth, romance, youth, andbeauty. Although scenes depicting impending sexual violence or its aftermath arenot considered a normal part of popular culture, they are acceptable enough withinthe industry that threatening images continue to appear with disturbing regularity.Indeed, fantasies of sexual coercion shot from the perpetrator’s point of view aretypical of violent pornography.

A direct link between ads that suggest sexual transgression and actual rape hasnever been established. Nevertheless, social acceptance and tolerance of these im-ages contribute to a culture of permissiveness, where the idea is conveyed that mencan rape with impunity. Most advertising rejects depictions of rape, but the re-mainder issue the threatening message that women are potential prey. See also:Media.

Suggested Reading: Jean Kilbourne, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes theWay We Think and Feel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999); Naomi Wolf, The BeautyMyth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (New York: Doubleday, 1991).

LINDA D. WAYNE

AFRICAN AMERICANS. The enslavement of African Americans is a core com-ponent of the economic and social history of the United States. In 1619, Europeansbrought the first ship with African slaves as cargo to Jamestown, Virginia. For somefemale slaves, rape was part of their initial journey from Africa to the Americancontinent. In one of the earliest accounts of these slave ship voyages, Olaudah

6 AFRICAN AMERICANS

Equiano, an African slave, wrote: “[I]t was almost a constant practice with ourclerks and other whites to commit violent degradations on the chastity of the femaleslaves. . . . I have even known them to gratify their brutal passion with females noteven ten years old” (Sollors, 77).

In the system of chattel slavery developed in the United States and abolished in1865, African American slave women were frequently raped. They could be legallyraped by their white masters, the young sons of their white masters, and employeesof their master, such as white overseers on Southern plantations. In another formof rape, women were sometimes forced to be “breeders,” which meant being forcedto have sexual relations with black male slaves to produce children for their whitemasters to enslave.

Connected to the problem of rape were damaging sexual stereotypes of AfricanAmericans and continued brutality against them, even after slavery was abolished.This sexual stereotyping and brutal treatment became an important aspect of thelegacy of slavery. From the post–Reconstruction period through the 1920s, AfricanAmericans were repeatedly lynched by whites in the South without any penalty forthe whites. The lynching of black men could include publicly castrating them, burn-ing them alive, or hanging them. A frequent justification for these murders was theaccusation that the lynched black men had sexually assaulted white women. Thesecharges did not have to be proven. Myths labeling black men as unable to controltheir sexual passions, particularly for white women, became rampant in society.

Moreover, citing their sexual “liaisons” with white masters, black female slaveswere often depicted by early historians of slavery as sexually promiscuous. Thesehistorians falsely represented the rape of black females as consensual sexual rela-tions. Such distortions about black women’s sexuality hid the crime of rape com-mitted by white slave owners. Stereotypes about the promiscuity of black femalesthat originated in slavery became part of the image of freed black women. As aconsequence of this, in the post–Reconstruction era, many black women were sub-jected to male sexual harassment and sometimes sexual assault when working asdomestics in white homes (a major form of employment for black women duringthis period).

The emergence of late-twentieth-century feminist scholarship stimulated a newdiscussion about the link between rape and racist stereotypes of black men, some-times with sharp disagreements among scholars. For example, black feministscholar/activist Angela Davis offered a critique of the racism within several whitefeminist discussions of rape, including the pioneering text Against Our Will bySusan Brownmiller. Davis presented arguments supporting the criticism of Brown-miller’s text “for its part in the resuscitation of the old racist myth of the blackrapist” (Davis, 178). In discussing the widespread problem of rape for women (in-cluding experiences of African American women), Brownmiller had defended whitewomen’s fear of rape by black men.

For African Americans in contemporary U.S. society, rape occurs most oftenintraracially, between African Americans, rather than interracially (as is the casefor all other racial/ethnic groups, including whites). Black females who have beenraped may feel anger, fear, humiliation, depression, numbness, a sense of violation,or shame. Certain racial and gender dynamics produced by U.S. society often in-tensify the anguish of black women and girls victimized by rape. When seekinghelp, they may encounter a combination of racism and sexism in the responses bycriminal justice officials. For instance, men who are convicted of raping black

AFRICAN WOMEN AND GIRLS 7

women tend to get shorter sentences than men who are convicted of raping whitewomen. Some black women who have been raped may be reluctant to report blackmale perpetrators because they do not want to be accused of contributing to theracist labeling of all black men as rapists. When seeking counseling after beingraped, some black women may be labeled as more emotionally “strong,” and some-times it is incorrectly assumed that they need less emotional support.

African American men who are socioeconomically poor are disproportionatelyincarcerated in prisons throughout the United States. Since rape committed by oneinmate against another is a common problem for male prisoners, black men mightbe perpetrators or victims of rape. African American men who are raped in prisonmay experience fear, anger, humiliation, and an overwhelming sense of powerless-ness because there is little public concern about addressing this crime against them.

During the first few hundred years of U.S. history the rape of African Americanwomen was a legal act, commonly integrated into the institution of slavery. Therelationship between rape and racism continued to be a problem that impactedAfrican Americans after slavery was abolished. At great cost to their lives and well-being, racist myths developed in American culture that labeled African Americanwomen as “rapable” (always sexually available) and African American men as rap-ists, especially of white women. Finally, when victimized by rape, there may beexperiences that intensify its trauma for African Americans that reflect deeply em-bedded cultural patterns related to race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomicstatus. See also: Rape History in the United States: Seventeenth Century; RapeHistory in the United States: Eighteenth Century; Rape History in the United States:Nineteenth Century; Rape History in the United States: Twentieth Century; Rape-Lynch Scenario; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: Angela Y. Davis, “Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist,”in her Women, Race, and Class (New York: Random House, 1981), 172–201; Patricia Mor-ton, Disfigured Images: The Historical Assault on Afro-American Women (Westport, CT:Praeger, 1991); Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Surviving the Silence: Black Women’s Stories of Rape(New York: W.W. Norton, 1998); Werner Sollors, ed., The Interesting Narrative of the Lifeof Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (New York: W.W.Norton, 1991); Jennifer Wriggins, “Rape, Racism, and the Law,” in Rape and Society: Read-ings on the Problem of Sexual Assault, ed. Patricia Searles and Ronaly J. Berger (Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1995), 215–222.

TRACI C. WEST

AFRICAN WOMEN AND GIRLS. Since the mid-1990s, the African media havecarried reports of endemic rape cases. Hardly a day passes by without a reportappearing in local newspapers about rape or defilement. The increasing incidenceof rape is due to the growing public awareness of rape and hence the willingnessto report rape cases. The sudden coverage of rape cases by the media may be traced,respectively, to two internal and external factors: the surging activism of Africanwomen and African response to globalization. The latter factor includes access totelevision, radio, newsmagazines, and the Internet. Both factors have led to popularawareness that rape is aberrant and criminal and has long-term physical and clinicaleffects on rape victims and their families (see Family).

Most rape victims in Africa fail to disclose their ordeal, and they do so for anumber of reasons. Some victims are intimidated by the rapists, who threaten them

8 AFRICAN WOMEN AND GIRLS

with death or bodily harm. Others decide not to report because they fear the stigmaand ostracism that comes with being raped and/or want to protect their relation-ships and families. In Congo, for example, husbands frequently abandon wives whohave been raped and force them to leave their homes. Given the harsh economicrealities, victims of rape in the workplace keep quiet in order to safeguard theirjobs. Incestuous rape is shelved because of the concern that it would tarnish thefamily’s name. Rich and powerful men get away with rape by settling rape casesout of the public domain. Also rape victims fail to come forward because they knowthat the system would fail them. Finally, a number of date rape incidents go un-reported because the victims blame themselves for associating with the rapists inthe first place. Overall, there are more unreported rape cases than there are reportedones. For example, the Nigerian police estimate that about 60 percent of rapes areunreported.

There is a paucity of statistical information on rape in Africa, but the few avail-able statistics can provide an indication of the enormity of rape on the continent.Between April 1, 1999, and August 19, 1999, the Women and Juvenile Unit(WAJU) of the Ghana Police Service recorded 92 cases of rape. Out of these, 25percent (which is 23 out of 100) related to the defilement of young girls betweenthe ages of one and eight years old. In the Lagos State of Nigeria, four to six femalesare raped daily. South Africa in 1994 recorded 18,801 cases of rape, and by 2001the number had reached 24,892. In Egypt, about 10,000 rapes are committed eachyear.

Although all age groups suffer rape, the evidence shows that those between twoyears and late teens suffer the most. Young female food and fruit peddlers, mostlyin their prepubescence, tend to be the victims of rapists who lure them by pretendingto buy whatever the girls are selling. Numerous rape cases include older males whosend young girls on errands and rape them thereafter. Due to the acute economicdeprivation, rapists are able to entice their victims by offering them food and softdrinks, sometimes laced with intoxicative substances. Some rapists waylay theirvictims and then resort to violence or threat of death to rape their victims. Dateand gang rape are common among teenagers, as well. Within families, incest andmarital rape are common but are seldom reported.

In the conflict-ridden zones of Africa, four kinds of rape have been identified.First, genocidal rape is aimed at annihilating an ethnic or political group. Thisoccurred in Rwanda during the 1994 ethnic violence and has carried over to theCongo. Second, political rape is used to punish political opponents of regimes; avery good example is the “Green Bombers” of Zimbabwe, a militia group createdby the government. Third is opportunistic rape, that is, when combatants or thepolice and soldiers run amok and resort to rape in areas of intermittent civil dis-sonance, as in the case of the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The final oneis forced concubinage that involves the conscription and kidnapping (see Abduc-tion/Kidnapping) of young girls to perform sexual and other services for militiamenand soldiers; this has occurred, for example, in Liberia, the Ivory Coast, the Sudan,and Zimbabwe. All four examples can be seen in the eastern part of the DemocraticRepublic of Congo, where, according to Human Rights Watch, sexual violenceagainst women is a “war within a war.”

African societies have several ways of detecting rape. Once rape is detected, it isreported to the police. For instance, the WAJU has set up a special unit that dealswith rape cases. Also, rape victims are sent to nearby health centers for treatment

AFRICAN WOMEN AND GIRLS 9

and collection of physical and other evidence. For younger victims, including tod-dlers, rape is usually identified after people notice the child crying from pain orblood oozing from his or her private parts. Immobilized rape victims, especially incases where the victim was either forced or tricked to ingest intoxicants and/orsuffered violent physical abuse, are found and returned to their families. The in-ability of rape victims, mostly young girls, to walk properly tends to reveal thatthey have been raped. Rape cases that end in pregnancy also pave the way for thedetection of rape. Some victims themselves, mostly teenagers, report the incidenceof rape to their families, usually their mothers, who in turn lodge complaints withthe police.

Through the lens of court cases, we can discern some of the ridiculous reasonsgiven by rapists for their acts. The reasons range from ones based on patriarchy toones bordering on depravity. But underlying all the reasons for rape are warpedpatriarchal values. In most cases, the perpetrators see their victims as objects thatshould be exploited to satisfy their sexual urges. Some rapists blame their victimsfor the offense, while others insist that they could not control their sexual urges.Yet some rapists maintain that they did not know why they engaged in rape andeven blame unseen forces, including the work of the devil. Rapists have also blamedalcohol as the reason for engaging in rape. Some of the reasons have an air ofcasualness symptomatic of assumed patriarchal rights to female sexuality; for ex-ample, some rapists claim that they only wanted to enjoy sex with their victims. InSouth Africa, the strange mythical belief that having sex with a virgin is a cure forHIV/AIDS has been blamed for the scourge of rape. In Ethiopia and Egypt, thelatter until recently, rape paved the way for marriage: virginity is prized, and oncea rape victim loses it, she is forced to marry the perpetrator.

The media have also offered some reasons for the scourge of rape. Some com-mentators have claimed that the provocative appearance of girls accounts for somerape cases, while others have asserted that rapists are mentally ill. Growing un-employment and its consequent idleness and confusion, according to some observ-ers, have provided the fuel for violence, including rape. Also, rapid urbanizationand the weakening of the extended family have been used to explain rape. For onething, urbanization brings about anonymity, and for another, the weakening of theextended family causes individualism. In both cases, individuals are able to hidebehind social masks to engage in crimes, one of which is rape. Globalism, theforeign tourist industry, and the spread of foreign cultures have also contributed tothe rape epidemic in Africa.

The demographics of rape reflect how class and status affect disclosures of rape.Most of those accused of rape or identified as rapists belong to the lower rungs ofsociety. This does not mean that highly placed men do not commit rape. Rather,the evidence shows that powerful men are able to get away with rape. For theirpart, influential women hardly report being raped because of the stigma attachedto rape and the patriarchal tradition that blames the victim. Most of the reportedcases of rape occur in the rural backwater; rape cases that come to light in theurban areas tend to occur outside the core residential areas of the rich and powerful.

How rape is criminalized varies among African countries. What is common isthat in all cases the police and courts are involved, but it is the ineffectiveness ofthese institutions that is the problem. Ghana’s Criminal Code can be used as a casestudy. The Ghanaian Criminal Code makes provisions for “defilement,” defined as“carnal knowledge of any female under fourteen years of age, with or without her

10 AFRICAN WOMEN AND GIRLS

consent. Defilement is a second-degree felony punishable by imprisonment for aperiod ranging from 12 months to 10 years. The application of this law is, however,weakened by Section 102 of the Criminal Code. This provision provides a defensethat the accused rapist had reasonable cause to believe a female between the agesof 10 and 14 was above 14 years of age. In contrast, rape is a first-degree felonyand is punishable by not less than 3 years’ imprisonment and a fine. The maximumsentence is life imprisonment. Most African countries, for example, Kenya and Ethi-opia, like Ghana do not criminalize marital rape, nor do they define rape as anyact other than forced vaginal sex. In fact, in the case of Kenya, the victim mustprove the degree of penetration. While such laws are informed by indigenous pa-triarchal practice, they are also the products of colonial laws.

Some rural communities attempt to solve rape cases through the use of indigenousarbitration panels consisting of community elders. Judgment includes formal rebukeof the rapist and his payment of compensation to the victim and her family. Thistype of intervention does not serve as a deterrent and may even encourage rapiststo continue. Some rape cases are settled out of court after the rapist has compen-sated his victim. Women activists have called for the abandonment of such practices.

The effects of rape are the least discussed subject in the media and popular dis-courses. Emotional, psychological, and physical trauma are at best implied butnever the subject of focus. Most of the reports describe toddlers, babies, and teen-agers who experienced bleeding from broken hymens or had blood oozing fromtheir private parts. The physical assaults that accompany rape are only mentionedto indicate the violent tactics employed by rapists but not how such assaults affectedthe victims.

Several solutions have been suggested as a means to eradicate the rape epidemic.Perhaps the most common recommended solution is the imposition of severe sen-tences on rapists. Many have proposed even more severe punishment for rapistswho are infected with HIV/AIDS. Calls have been made to establish rape crisiscenters to meet the emotional and physical needs of rape victims. The education ofgirls has been identified as an important factor in curbing rape. Groups such as theFederation of African Women Educationists (FAWE), a nongovernmental organi-zation (NGO), support female education as a means of empowerment. In SouthAfrica and Nigeria, the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League andthe Women’s Rights Watch are, respectively, active in the campaign against rape.The pulpits of various churches draw attention to rape. For example, the ChristianCouncil of Ghana has called for combined efforts of churches and other organi-zations to end sexual harassment and rape. Teachers, especially females, have alsobeen urged to form antirape task forces to counsel against rape and violence againstwomen. Women’s groups all over Africa—for example, the Ghana National Com-mission on Women and Development, Kenya’s Coalition of Violence againstWomen, and Women in Nigeria—are politicizing and internationalizing rape andother forms of violence against women. As a result of internal and external pres-sures, African governments have become involved in eliminating violence againstfemales, including rape. In Egypt, for example, internal pressures forced the gov-ernment to scrap the law known as Article 291, a legal anomaly that allowed arapist to escape punishment if the rapist legally married his victim. Sources of sup-port and activism against rape outside Africa have included Amnesty Internationaland the World Health Organization.

In recent times, African women have become empowered and conscientized. The

AGAINST OUR WILL 11

African media, women’s groups, NGOs, churches, and academic institutions areworking to improve the conditions and status of women. All of these groups havethe elimination of rape on their agenda and have called on victims of rape to comeforward. In spite of this, the greatest threat to women is patriarchal ideology thatjustifies gender and social inequalities by making rape seem natural. See also:“Blaming the Victim” Syndrome; Genocide; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: December Green, Gender Violence in Africa: African Women’s Re-sponses (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Rene Lefort, “Congo: A Hell on Earth forWomen,” World Press Review Online, http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1561.cfm; BinaiferNowrojee, Violence against Women in South Africa: The State Response to Domestic Vio-lence and Rape (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995); Lloyd Vogelman, The Sexual Faceof Violence: Rapists on Rape (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990).

KWABENA O. AKURANG-PARRY

AGAINST OUR WILL. The first, and still most comprehensive, examination of rapein world history, Susan Brownmiller’s bestselling study Against Our Will: Men,Women and Rape was published in 1975, at the height of the modern women’srights movement. A popular rather than strictly scholarly account, it was nonethe-less an ambitious volume. Geographically and temporally vast in scope, AgainstOur Will relies on an extensive array of sources to document rape’s history in avariety of contexts, including wars, riots, revolutions, and pogroms, from antiquityto the present.

According to Brownmiller, rape is a natural product of patriarchal social relationsin which males are schooled in the arts of dominance, while females are taught tosubmit. She rejects the view of rape as fundamentally sexual, construing it insteadas an act of violence deployed by men to maintain their preeminence in the pre-vailing gender hierarchy. Brownmiller’s theoretical posture is most aptly conveyedin her controversial assertion that rape “is nothing more or less than a consciousprocess of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” Al-though this interpretation resonated with many readers, women in particular, itwas widely seen as hostile, extremist, and antimale, over time providing much gristfor the mill of women’s rights opponents. Brownmiller made a number of otherprovocative statements on the subject—for instance, describing marriage as a dan-gerous bargain whereby women accepted the dominion of one man as protectionagainst rape by the many—but these were generally consistent with the radicalfeminist thinking of the day.

Critical reaction to Against Our Will ran the gamut from enthusiastic praise tovitriolic attack. On the one hand, the book was commended for its breadth, passion,and consciousness-raising impact. On the other, it was criticized for universalizingthe experiences of white, middle-class women at the expense of those of other clas-ses and colors. Some charged Brownmiller with outright racism, taking issue, forexample, with her contention that lynching victim Emmett Till—a 14-year-oldblack visiting his great-uncle’s cabin in Money, Mississippi, in late August 1955—and his white murderers shared a view of women as objects of sexual conquest.Against Our Will has also been censured for establishing too rigid a divide betweensex and violence, thus oversimplifying complex relations of power in which bothare implicated, and finally, for inadvertently perpetuating the fallacy that rape issomething that happens “out there” rather than “at home,” where in fact the vastmajority of such assaults take place.

12 ALCOHOL

Whatever its deficiencies, Against Our Will remains a pioneering study. Throughits compelling presentation of rape as a fundamental social problem, it helped toconsolidate its place on the public agenda. Along with works like Kate Millett’sSexual Politics (1970) and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970), AgainstOur Will stands as a key text of second-wave feminism and Brownmiller’s mostenduring contribution to the cause of women’s rights to date. See also: FeministMovement; National Organization for Women (NOW); New York Radical Femi-nists; Rape, Causes of; Rape History in the United States: Twentieth Century.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (New York:Random House, 1999).

LISA CARDYN

ALCOHOL. Most statistics converge on the conclusion that a sizable proportionof rape incidents involve alcohol. The percentages of rapes committed under theinfluence of alcohol range from 26 to 90 percent. Such high figures are most ob-viously due to alcohol’s role in overcoming sexual inhibition. Convicted rapists whowere drunk at the time of the incident admit having felt more powerful owing toalcohol. Yet although this cause-effect relationship seems straightforward and in-tuitively obvious, the exact correlation between alcohol abuse and rape is morecomplicated. It is hard to ascertain whether alcohol can be a single factor promptingsexually abusive behavior. Alcohol may merely be an accompanying element inincidents where perpetrators have an inherent tendency to be aggressive, as somestudies show that a large number of sex offenders have a record of other nonsexualcrimes. Besides, part of the statistics of alcohol-related rape can be explained bythe fact that many drunken offenders are motivated by the common false notionthat alcohol mitigates the rapist’s criminal liability.

The offender is not always the only intoxicated party in a rape. Many rapes occuras a result of a common misconception that a drunken woman “invites sex.” Thisreasoning serves as a twisted rationalization for sexual aggression, and it inevitablymakes women more prone to being victimized. Alcohol is also known to contributeto rape by reducing a woman’s reluctance to have sex; it clouds judgment andconsiderably limits her ability to assess risk. A woman under the influence of alcoholwill often miss telltale signs of a potential assailant’s sexually driven behavior. Infact, as many males admit, mindful of alcohol’s effects, they have offered alcoholor drugs in order to obtain a woman’s sexual consent. Numerous studies confirmthat large percentages of women who experience sexual aggression are often them-selves intoxicated. But intoxication jeopardizes victims regardless of their sex. Thisbecame obvious in the sex scandal in the Catholic Church revealed in 2002, wheresome priests were said to have resorted to alcohol in order to cajole their underagemale victims into having sex. Although the magnitude of the scandal may never berevealed entirely, a number of specific allegations regarding alcohol have alreadybeen made. One victim accused Ronald Paquin, a priest defrocked after severalother accusations, of intoxicating and drugging him and a friend and attemptingto abuse them sexually afterward.

Alcohol-induced rape has been known since time immemorial, as it is recordedin the earliest myths of antiquity. A principal figure in Greek mythology that sym-bolizes this form of sexual craving is Satyr, associated with the god of wine, Dio-nysus (Bacchus). Satyr was depicted as a woodland creature fond of drinking and

ALCOHOL 13

raping nymphs. In real life, too, drinking and sexual abuse, often forced on children,were not unheard of in ancient times, but because such acts were considered reli-gious in nature, they rarely bore the stigma of any wrongdoing.

More recently in history, massive military conflicts have occasioned countlesscases of brutal gang rapes, most often committed by soldiers emboldened by alco-hol. But here, too, despite the frequency and notoriety of drinking, it is hard toexplain rape solely in terms of the rapists’ intoxication. Raping women of an in-vaded land has traditionally been understood as part of military conquest, whateverthe invading soldiers’ state of mind. A case in point was the Soviet counterattackcampaign against Nazi Germany in 1945, during which hundreds of thousands ofwomen, not only German, were raped in the wake of the advancing Red Army.Many of the rapists were drunk, but any theory imputing the havoc they havewrought solely to drinking is not credible. Among other important factors behindsexual abuse in the time of war are constant battlefield stress, a lack of fear ofretribution for rape, and prolonged sexual inactivity, which gives rise to sexualfrustration, conditions easily exacerbated by alcohol consumption.

Alcohol’s role in overcoming natural inhibitions and in turn leading to sexualaggression is cited as one of the reasons behind the Islamic Prohibition of alcohol.Similarly, an aversion to the general corruption was among the forces underlyingthe American Prohibition of 1919–1933. Based on similar premises, a number ofother attempts have been made in the past to outlaw the consumption of alcoholicbeverages, the earliest ones being in ancient China, Aztec society, and in feudalJapan. However, most countries that have attempted to ban alcohol have repealedtheir austere prohibition laws, which have been maintained only in a few Muslimstates.

Nowadays adverse effects of alcohol consumption are fought through variousforms of rape prevention policies. Special regulations are issued on U.S. collegecampuses, where most sex crimes have involved alcohol and drug abuse, and ac-quaintance rape is the most common crime committed in college. One measureaiming at preventing this problem is the stipulation that acquaintance rape, eventhat committed in drunkenness, is tantamount to and carries the same consequencesas a rape by a stranger.

Alcohol-related rape has also received special attention in the air force. Currentlya report is being produced by the General Counsel Working Group studying 56alleged sexual assaults by Air Force Academy cadets since 1993, almost half ofwhich were committed under the influence of alcohol. The report discusses breachesin procedures for guarding against sexual assault.

Among the most recent rape incidents involving alcohol was the gang rape of a16-year-old girl on August 25, 2002. Six U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Drum werecharged with third-degree sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child. The rapeoccurred at a party, and the perpetrators admitted having been under the influenceof alcohol. The six soldiers were arrested, then released on bail, and their cases arecurrently pending grand jury action. See also: Campus Rape; Date Rape/Acquain-tance Rape; Sexual Assault, Drug-Facilitated; U.S. Military.

Suggested Reading: Antonia Abbey, “Acquaintance Rape and Alcohol Consumption onCollege Campuses,” Journal of American College Health 39 (January 1991): 165–169; An-tony Beevor, “They Raped Every German Female from Eight to 80,” The Guardian, May1, 2002.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

14 ANAL SEX

ANAL SEX. Anal sex is a penetration of the rectum through the anus, by a penisor another mechanical means, most often for achieving sexual gratification or inforeplay. As an experience, therefore, it is comparable to a vaginal penetration,despite the anatomical differences between the vagina and the rectum.

Historically, the practice of anal sex for sexual gratification can be traced backto such “love” manuals as the Kama Sutra in India, which describes the stepsleading to a complete satisfaction of the couple as an alternative to vaginal pene-tration. In ancient Greece anal sex is also related to bodily pleasure, since homo-sexual relations were socially accepted and regarded as a higher level of spiritualitybetween men, especially between older men and boys.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, described anal sex asmost often related to the sadomasochistic ritual of submission and dominance. Hefurther connected this practice with certain character traits in adults, namely, ex-treme neatness (orderliness), parsimony, and obstinacy.

Forced anal sex can produce a rupture and bruising of the tissue of the anal area,with all the consequences that a vaginal rape might have, for example, hemorrhage.While in no immediate danger of unwanted pregnancy, the female victim—as wellas the male one, for that matter—is still in danger of contracting venereal diseasesor HIV/AIDS. As in vaginal rapes, the psychological trauma is equally difficult toovercome. See also: Male Rape; Oral Sex.

Suggested Reading: Sigmund Freud, “Character and Anal Eroticism,” in The StandardEdition of the Complete Psychological Works, vol. 9, trans. and ed. James Strachey(London: Hogarth Press, 1991); William Armstrong Percy, Pederasty and Pedagogy in Ar-chaic Greece (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1996); Steven G. Underwood, GayMen and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms and Versatiles (Binghamton, NY: Harrington ParkPress, 2003).

ROSSITSA TERZIEVA-ARTEMIS

ANCIENT LAW CODES. The codification of laws by which civilizations ex-pressed their beliefs and regulated social order goes back to antiquity. Ancient lawswere usually based on lex talionis—an eye for an eye, or blood justice. In general,these ancient laws delineate the mores of patriarchal and hierarchical societies thatplaced the interests of free men above that of their wives, concubines, and slaves.As rape scholar Susan Brownmiller notes, “Written law in its origin was a solemncompact among men of property, designed to protect their own male interests bya civilized exchange of goods or silver in place of force wherever possible” (18). Itremained acceptable to capture brides from other settlements during battles becausethis was deemed a natural bonus of war, but it became unacceptable to abduct orrape females from within one’s own tribe or city because it disrupted the statusquo. Thus it became the custom and then the law for fathers to be paid for theirdaughters in the form of bride prices.

Rape of a virgin, then, became a crime that damaged the property of her father—devaluing the price he could achieve for her as a bride. This view can be seen inthe Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which dates from about 1780 b.c.e. Accord-ing to Hammurabi’s code, virgins were considered innocent if raped, but their at-tackers were executed. However, a married woman who was raped was consideredto be guilty of adultery. Both she and her rapist could be executed by being thrown

ART 15

in the river, although her husband had the right to save her, if he wished todo so.

Other ancient codes produced similar laws on rape. The Code of the Nesilim(Hittites), c. 1650–1500 b.c.e., noted that a man would be killed if he raped awoman a distance from her house, but if he raped her within her house, she wasdeemed culpable and could be executed. It was assumed that the woman did notscream or show much resistance, bringing others to her rescue, and therefore shemust have consented to have sexual intercourse with him.

Besides outlining the penalties for a variety of laws, including the raping of vir-gins, married women, and slaves, these ancient law codes listed the punishmentsfor other sex-related crimes. The Code of Assura, c. 1075 b.c.e., indicated that asoldier would be castrated if he had sex with a fellow soldier. The Code of theNesilim proscribed various penalties for having intercourse with animals. Bestialitywas considered to be a capital crime if committed with some animals but not all.See also: Abduction (Kidnapping); Bible, Old Testament; Rape Law; Religion.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html.

MERRIL D. SMITH

ARMIES. See U.S. Military; War Crimes; Wartime Rape.

ART. The art history of rape stretches from ancient Greek paintings of gods ab-ducting mortals to contemporary feminist images of brutal attacks. Reflecting thebroader rape discourse of their eras, early artists represented nonconsensual sex asromantic and heroic, whereas more recent artists show rape as violent and terri-fying. Similarly, the strategies for depicting rape have shifted from subtle signs ofthe victim’s unwillingness to overt representations of penetration and physical as-sault.

Most images of rape in the history of Western art illustrate well-known literarytraditions and act as metaphors of love or power and as voyeuristic opportunities.Ancient Greek legends, for example, are filled with nonconsensual sex, such as thestory of Ganymede, in which the god Zeus, having fallen in love with the beautifulboy, transformed himself into an eagle, carried him off, and raped him. To illustratethe myth, artists including Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) portrayed the mo-ments before the rape, with the beautiful body of the surprised boy displayed beforethe strong, rapacious bird. The literary history of the Roman civilization is likewisefilled with stories of forced sex including Rome’s foundation legend, a rape narra-tive that artists such as Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) illustrated under the title Rapeof the Sabine Women (see Rape of the Sabine Women). The paintings and sculpturesshow Rome’s founding fathers abducting their neighbors’ wives to impregnate withthe city’s future citizens. The women appear fearful, disheveled, and resistant asthey are carried away by rapists represented as strong and virtuous. The rape andsuicide of the Roman heroine Lucretia similarly made a regular appearance in artfrom antiquity to the nineteenth century, either illustrating the attacker over-powering his supine victim or displaying the woman’s voluptuous body after theassault as she plunged the knife in her chest. In these and other cases, the paintings

16 ASIA

and sculptures of rape were created by men for men and evince little or no com-passion for the victims or concern for the physical violence of rape. Since the pur-pose of these images was to demonstrate virtues of strength and power, artistsavoided representing the sex act, permitting abduction, dishevelment, and the vic-tim’s resistance to stand for the rape itself.

Rape also appears in scenes of war, but unlike the images derived from literarysources, these works generally do not heroicize the rapist. Instead, rape is offeredas part of an array of vile—but expected—behaviors committed by undisciplinedsoldiers. French printmaker Jacques Callot (1592–1635) and Spanish artist Fran-cisco de Goya (1746–1828) created some of the most brutal images of rape beforethe 1960s. Callot’s The Miseries of War (1633) and Goya’s The Disasters of War(1810–1815) both show soldiers raping and killing female noncombatants. Bothartists employ a frank code of symbols to suggest the imminent rape, representinga dressed and armed man seizing a dressed or nude woman or lying on top of her.Callot and Goya display sympathy for the female victims as part of their generalhorror at the cruelty civilians endured during wars, using pose, facial expression,and fearful gestures to communicate the victims’ terror.

The change rape’s images underwent in the hands of late-twentieth-century fem-inists was hinted at by German artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867–1945), whose workfocuses attention away from the literary and historical contexts and onto the act’sviolence and its devastating effect on the individual woman. The 1960s rise offeminism completed the transformation. Today British artist Sue Coe (1952– )confronts the viewer directly with a horrific rape scene in Rape, Bedford (1984), inwhich the deathly body of the female victim is held motionless by two men whileanother rapes her. Cuban artist Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) made an equally pow-erful protest against rape with a 1973 performance in which she assumed the roleof the victim, displaying her own bloodied, half-nude body for the audience. Thesewomen and other feminist artists active today prefer to confront their viewers di-rectly with their disgust and anger, rejecting the heroic tradition and the subtlesymbolism employed by earlier artists in favor of realistic and expressive depictionsof rape.

As in other areas of cultural production, the images of rape have changed dra-matically since the early paintings of gods abducting beautiful youths. The changecan be attributed not only to differing perceptions of rape from era to era but alsoto the increasing visibility of women artists. A topic for painters that was once ametaphor of power and virtue is today, due to feminist influence, a critical commenton violence against women. See also: Media; Mythology; Rape of Lucretia; Theater;Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: Margaret D. Carroll, “The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the Mys-tification of Sexual Violence,” in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, ed.Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York: HarperCollins, 1992); Yael Even, “TheLoggia dei Lanzi: A Showcase of Female Subjugation,” in The Expanding Discourse: Fem-inism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York: HarperCollins,1992); Natalie Boymel Kampen, ed., Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece,and Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Diane Wolfthal, Images of Rape:The “Heroic” Tradition and Its Alternatives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

KELLY DONAHUE-WALLACE

ASIA. See Comfort Women; Okinawa Rape Case; Rape of Nanking.

ASIAN AMERICANS 17

ASIAN AMERICANS. Asian American is a term used in the United States to de-scribe a wide range of identities and ethnic groups with vastly different culturesand experiences. It is therefore advisable to examine the specific culture that anindividual identifies with in order to create culturally competent models of care,research, and understanding, rather than to rely on generalizations that result inthe homogenization of various ethnic groups. Groups that may fall under the head-ing of “Asian American” include the following: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, SouthKorean, Indian, Vietnamese, Filipino/a, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Nep-alese, Laotian, Thai, Taiwanese, Malaysian, and Cambodian.

The United States homogenizes these categories into the single identity marker“Asian American” and uses the term to describe demographics related to all mem-bers of these ethnic groups, regardless of particular cultural identity or, generally,immigration status. Thus, when the U.S. Bureau of Statistics reports that “1 out ofevery 1,000 Asian Americans report being sexually assaulted,” it is often unclearwhat those particular statistics mean. This condensation of statistics, along withU.S. stereotypes of Asian American women as being hypersexualized, docile, andobedient, and tied to the community and thus unable or unwilling to speak aboutrape, contributes to the many barriers to care and reporting faced by survivors ofsexual assault that identify as Asian American.

According to the Asian American Pacific Islanders Domestic Violence Resourceproject, Asian Americans face several other challenges in reporting rape that con-tribute to the low amounts of available data and qualitative studies regarding sexualassault for their particular ethnic groups. These issues include a lack of culturallycompetent services, the predominant belief within many Asian American and PacificIsland cultures that bringing private matters into the public arena (e.g., law enforce-ment, health centers, mental health counseling) will bring shame to one’s family,language barriers, and documentation problems surrounding immigration.

Most reports of Asian American sexual assault are embedded within studies ondomestic violence or intimate partner violence, though some Asian American fem-inist anthologies also include specific narratives of women who have been sexuallyassaulted or who are survivors of domestic violence. Predominant studies includethe work of Project AWARE (Asian Women Advocating Respect and Empower-ment), a study funded by the Asian American Domestic Violence Resource Centerthat acts as a needs assessment study for survivors in the DC area. Similarly, theAsian Family Violence Report of the Asian Task Force against Domestic Violencehas completed a similar study in Massachusetts. These two reports estimate thatfamily violence, including sexual assault, is a major problem within Asian Americancommunities and take pains to underscore the importance of ethnic breakdownwhen studying any group. The Project AWARE study (2003) estimated that ap-proximately 35 women in their study of 178 participants in the Washington, DCarea experienced forced sexual encounters “occasionally, frequently, or very fre-quently.” The Executive Summary of the Asian Family Violence Report indicatesthat 69 percent of survey participants (a sample of which included perpetrators andsurvivors) had experienced physical abuse as children, and this correlated to inci-dents of both physical and sexual violence within various communities. Addition-ally, cultural beliefs about the role of women and men within familial contextsprovided rationale for family violence, which most often included marital rape.Further contributing factors included concepts of familial shame, internalization of“the Model Minority” stereotype, and threats related to one’s immigration status.

18 ATHLETES

The process of immigration and one’s immigration status (documented or un-documented) can also pose a risk for sexual assault. Vietnamese women immigrat-ing to the United States as late as 1985 report being subjected to rape and pillageat the hands of pirates feeding off of boats bound for America. Particularly inVietnam, these sexual assaults are further compounded by high rates of sexualassaults in asylum camps and cultural stigmas attached to leaving one’s marriage,even if the situation is violent. Often, Vietnamese women are subject to rape withinmarriage, flee to asylum camps where they may again be assaulted, leave for Amer-ica, and are assaulted again by pirates on the journey to America. Once in theUnited States, culturally competent services are difficult to find, and many Vietnam-ese women will not discuss the circumstances of their rape, fearing rejection by theirfamily for airing personal problems in public. Similar problems in immigration arereported by Korean and some Chinese survivors.

Finally, the U.S.-bred stereotypes of Asian American women as exotic, hypersex-ualized, and submissive also contribute to the objectification of these women andthus make them highly susceptible to sexual assault. Initial steps in almost anystrategy of dominance include dehumanization, and because Asian Americanwomen are often perceived as quiet and subservient, it becomes easy for their bodiesto become the objects of assault. Additionally, pornographers in the United Statescapitalize on what is known as “Asian Fetishes,” an apparent fetishization of AsianAmerican women and their sexual practices. Often, these erotic or pornographicimages are exceptionally violent and show repeated acts of forced intercourse. Theseimages and the predominant historical notion of Asian American women as pros-titutes may contribute to violence against Asian American women.

Asian American feminists of all cultural backgrounds are actively seeking to breakapart these stereotypes and break silences about the abuse and violence within theirlives. Chinese American songwriter Magdalen Hsu-Li writes about the experienceof sexual assault on her album Fire, and several women work in violence advocacygroups, participate in outreach, and have contributed to feminist-based anthologiesaround issues of sexual violence. See also Interracial Rape; Massie Case; Pornog-raphy.

Suggested Reading: Asian Women United of California, Making Waves: An Anthology ofWritings by and about Asian American Women (Boston: Beacon, 1989); Shamita Das Das-gupta, A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America (New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Karen McDonnell and Shamira Abdulla, “ProjectAWARE,” Asian Pacific Islanders Domestic Violence Resource Project, Washington, DC,2003, http://chnm.gmu.edu/dvrp/docs/aware.pdf; Marianne Yoshiola, “Asian Family Vio-lence Report: A Study of the Chinese, Cambodian, Korean, and South Asian Communitiesin Massachusetts” (Cambridge, MA: Asian Task Force against Domestic Violence, 2003).

CHRISTINA BOREL

ATHLETES. With increased and unprecedented reports of athletes at every levelfrom high school to professional involved in abusive behavior against women, rapehas become a topic of critical concern. It is presumed that sports culture mirrorssociety, and since violence is so prevalent, it should come as no surprise that athletesare not only involved in abusive behavior against women, but athletes are morelikely to be involved in social violence than nonathletes, according to Wechsler andcolleagues. In recent decades, several professional athletes have been accused of

ATHLETES 19

rape. There are great debates as to why athletes seem committed to negative activ-ities and behavior and feel drawn to aggressive action against women. Much mediaattention has been given to cases involving athletes, such as Mike Tyson, MarkChmura, and Kobe Bryant—to name just a few.

Are athletes out of control? Are they just spoiled jocks who have lost touch withreality? Or is this phenomenon merely a reflection of what society has become?Some theorists argue that athletes make the mistake of believing that they are stars(celebrities) who are beyond the realm of society’s laws. They sexually assaultwomen because they are not held to the same standards as everyone else.

In contrast, athletes and their supporters contend that because of their stardom,athletes are more likely to be scrutinized or falsely accused than nonathletes andthat there is no difference in their behaviors. Still other theories hold that athleticaggression is the key to an athlete’s success and that this aggression carries over torelationships with women, where it becomes difficult to separate the hostility andcontrol anger. As violence becomes a way of life, the athlete engages in antisocialbehavior.

Among athletes, there is a climate of “privilege” that has been conveyed to inferspecial treatment associated with their athletic skills. Then, too, there is a generalfeeling that they are not held to the same standard as everyone else. As a result,crimes such as assault, domestic violence, and rape seem to go unpunished or arenot punished harshly.

Generally, there are many who blame sports (literally) for the sexual violenceagainst women. They put forth the concept that the (sport) activity is a demon-stration of manhood and that it spawns attitudes and frequent occurrences wherefemales are looked upon as objects and considered conquests. Rape, they believe,is its by-product.

While sports, in and of themselves, do not make athletes likely to rape women,it is likely that the way sports are organized to influence masculine identities maylead some male athletes to rape. Yet, overall, even a negative association within thesports culture as part of an athletic team usually does more good than harm.

Whether the theories are true or not, many can agree that athletes are placed ona pedestal in American society. Fame often precedes that sense of invincibility thatbegins early in childhood, when an athlete’s ability first becomes apparent. Psy-chologists and sociologists alike believe that this heightens the sense of privilegethat is the breeding ground for most of their off-field behavior and the direct abuseagainst women.

With communities/institutions outraged by athletes’ involvement in sexual as-saults, authorities are confused as to how to resolve the problem. Victims often findtheir complaints are not treated seriously. Gang rape cases have been dismissed to“group sex,” and women are pressured to drop charges. In some cases, womenseeking redress are frequently silenced for the sake of an institution.

These institutions have begun to address the problem. Brochures, seminars, andfilms are being used to heighten athletes’ sensitivity to rape and other violence, butmore stringent measures are called for. While most women have faith their attackerswill be caught, they have less faith that their attackers will be prosecuted. Manyattacks are committed by friends/dates, and in a court of law, sexual assault isdifficult to prove, and many violators are set free. See also: Celebrity Rapists; GlenRidge (NJ) Rape Case; Rape Trials.

20 ATHLETES

Suggested Reading: Jeffery R. Benedict, Athletes and Acquaintance Rape, vol. 8 of SageSeries on Violence against Women (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998): RonaldBerger and Patricia Searles, Rape and Society: Readings in the Problems of Sexual Assault(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Pamela Carrol, Steve Chandler, and Dwayne Johnson,“Abusive Behavior of College Athletes,” College Student Journal 33 (1999): 1–7; K.A. Doug-las, J.L. Collins, C. Warren, et al., “The National College Women Sexual VictimizationSurvey, National Institute of Justice (NIJ),” Journal of American College Health 46.5 (De-cember 2000): 55–66; A. Parrot and L. Bechofer, Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1991); Cheryl Rigel, Criminal Victimization 1996:Changes 1995–96 with Trends 1993–1996 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics,1996); H. Wechsler, A. Davenport, G.W. Dowdall, B. Molykens, and S. Castillo, “CollegeBinge Drinking and Alcohol-Related Injury and Violence,” Journal of Public Health 85(1995): 921–925.

FRED LINDSEY

B

BATTERED WOMEN. The term battered women refers to women who are victimsof domestic violence. Domestic violence is defined as violence between members ofa household, usually spouses. In contrast, the term spousal abuse refers specificallyto any type of abuse—physical, sexual, or psychological abuse—inflicted on onespouse by the other and highlights the intimate nature of the relationship of abatterer and his victim. Though not all women within battering relationships suffersexual abuse, some are subjected to marital rape. This may include any sexualactivity that is forced or coerced from a wife by her spouse. Similarly, not all victimsof marital rape endure what is considered a battering relationship.

Approximately 1.5 million battered women seek assistance from social welfareand legal organizations each year; there are probably many others, who never comeforward for help. Though studies reveal that no two battering relationships areidentical, batterers across ethnicities, social classes, and nation–states do exhibitsimilar patterns. Experts find that physical abuse is generally accompanied by men-tal, economic, and psychological abuse to create an environment in which the bat-terer has an inordinate amount of power and control over his victim’s autonomy.Today in the United States service providers educate battered women about whatis known as the “Cycle of Violence,” which begins with a Tension Building phase,leads to an Explosion of a violent incident, and often results in a Hearts and Flowersphase, in which batterers show remorse and vigorously apologize. The combinationof nonphysical abuses with both bodily injury and the threat of physical force, andeven death, produces a context of intimidation and terror in which battered womenmay choose to stay confined for fear of death.

Forced sexual activity within an intimate-partner relationship is a relatively newcrime in the United States. From the seventeenth century through much of the 1980sin both the United States and Britain, it was a legal impossibility for a husband tobe charged, prosecuted, or convicted of raping his wife. With the advent of thewomen’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s came the abolishment of the “spousalexemption,” or the exclusion of husbands who sexually abused their wives, from

22 BESTIALITY

the prosecutorial process. Today, in most states, husbands can be prosecuted forraping their wives. However, where marital rape is concerned, legal processing re-mains difficult, because rape myths persist among the population and among victimsthemselves. Usually, before any legal action can be taken, victim-survivors mustview their partners’ coerced sex acts as criminal. Qualitative data and clinical casestudies suggest that some women, for a variety of reasons, are reluctant to nameforced sexual violence within marriage “rape.”

Social services and legal assistance for battered women have steadily grown inNorth America since the 1970s to include shelters, court advocates, and specialfamily violence sections of police stations and state attorney’s offices. Irrespectiveof the multitude of agencies available to aid women in battering relationships, re-searchers concur that the chief legal service available to battered women is theprotective order, or a court injunction mandated by judges that prohibits a personfrom harassing, threatening, and even approaching another specified person. Butresearch indicates that wife rape is often not documented in affidavits for protectiveorders and that service providers in shelters are still reluctant to talk to batteredwomen about sexual violence. See also: Sexual Coercion.

Suggested Reading: Raquel Kennedy Bergen, Wife Rape: Understanding the Response ofSurvivors and Service Providers (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996); David Finkelhor andKersti Yllo, License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,1996); Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—from Do-mestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1992); Andrew Klein, “Re-abusein a Population of Court-Restrained Male Batterers: Why Restraining Orders Don’t Work,”in Do Arrests and Restraining Orders Work? ed. E.S. Buzawa and C.G. Buzawa (ThousandOaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 53–73; Sharon Lamb, “Constructing the Victim: Popular Imagesand Lasting Labels,” in New Versions of Victims: Feminists Struggle with the Concept, ed.S. Lamb (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 108–138; S. Sally Merry, “SpatialGovernmentality and the New Urban Social Order: Controlling Gender Violence throughLaw,” American Anthropologist 103 (2001): 16–29; Diana Russell, Rape in Marriage (In-dianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990); Shonna Trinch, “The Advocate as Gatekeeper:The Limits of Politeness in Protective Order Interviews with Latina Survivors of DomesticViolence,” Journal of Sociolinguistics 5 (2001): 475–506; Shonna Trinch, “Managing Eu-phemism and Transcending Taboos: Negotiating the Meaning of Sexual Assault in Latinas’Narratives of Domestic Violence,” Text 21 (2001): 567–610.

SHONNA L. TRINCH

BESTIALITY. In its narrowest sense, bestiality involves intercourse, either vaginalor anal, with a nonhuman animal; but bestiality can also include oral-genital con-tact of any kind between humans and animals, as well as the insertion of digits orobjects other than the penis into the vagina, anus, or cloaca. Acts of bestialityhighlight interesting aspects of the definition of rape. Is rape something a humandoes to another human? Or is bestiality a form of rape? It is known that womenhave been raped by abusers who force sex with animals, or force animals uponwomen. But is bestiality a form of forced sex itself? Recently this claim has beenadvanced by animal advocates.

Forms of bestiality include opportunistic or safety-valve sex in which the animalis viewed as an available sex object who provides sexual release in the absence ofa human partner; fixated sex involves persons who see animals not as mere stand-insbut as love objects and exclusive sexual “partners”; in domineering sex, batterers,

BIBLE, OLD TESTAMENT 23

rapists, and pornographers arrange or force sex between a human and an animalin order to exploit or to humiliate the human, most often a woman.

Proximity allows for sexual access. This is why cats, dogs, sheep, cows, hens,rabbits, goats, mules, ducks, rabbits, horses, boars, bulls, and fishes are more fre-quently used, rather than gorillas, chimpanzees, and other animals.

With the growth of the Internet, bestiality has achieved a new visibility and adefense that it is a benign act, but the issue of perspective remains: What does theanimal experience? Further, bestiality, like rape, raises questions of consent. Inhuman-animal relationships, the human being has control of many—if not all—ofthe aspects of an animal’s well being. Relationships of unequal power cannot beconsensual. Bestiality is the model case of circumventing consent, on the one hand,while confusing affection for consent, on the other. See also: Computers and theInternet; Pornography.

Suggested Reading: Carol J. Adams, “Bestiality: The Unmentioned Abuse,” Animals’Agenda 15 (January 1996): 29–31.

CAROL J. ADAMS

BIBLE, OLD TESTAMENT. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is a canon of 24books that chronicle the laws and history of a monotheistic Jewish religion as farback as 1400 b.c.e. The biblical laws concerning rape are unequivocal. Exodus 22:15–16 decrees that if a man seduces a virgin for whom a dowry has not been paid,and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father refusesto give her to him, he must still pay him the equivalent dowry set for virgins.Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 22:29 where this scenario recurs, the text adds thatbecause the man has violated a virgin, he can never divorce her. The law becomesmerciless when the rape has occurred in the open country where the girl could notbe heard and saved (Deuteronomy 22:25–27). In this case, the man is put to death,and the girl is spared.

Threats of rape are found in the narratives about Sarah (Genesis 20; 26), Avishag(1 Kings 1), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:7) and the cities of Jerusalem and Samaria (Eze-kiel 16; 23). Interestingly, only three actual rapes of women are depicted in theentire corpus: the rape of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter (Genesis 34), the rape of theanonymous concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19–21), and the incestuous rape of Tamar,King David’s daughter (2 Samuel 13).

Genesis 34 is a tale of intrigue, deception, sexual violence, and ethnic cleansing.It begins by introducing the victim Dinah, who is visiting with the daughters of theland. Shechem, son of Hamor, Prince of the Land, saw her, took her by force, andraped her. Schechem—who feminist scholars identify as a “sexual gratification rap-ist” (Scholz, 142)—continued to desire Dinah and proposed to marry her. WhenJacob heard that his daughter was violated, he decided to wait silently for his sonsto return from the fields. Dinah’s brothers were enraged upon hearing the newsbecause “this was an outrage in Israel—a thing not to be done.” On his son’surging, Hamor went to ask Jacob’s blessing for the marriage between Dinah andShechem. He also offered complete integration and intermarriage between his peo-ple and Jacob’s tribe, along with a large dowry for Dinah. Jacob’s sons demandedthat all the city’s males be circumcised as a condition for such a union. (Malecircumcision became a practice among the Jews during the days of Abraham thepatriarch, Jacob’s grandfather.) The people of Shechem complied and circumcised

24 BIG DAN’S TAVERN CASE

all of their males. On the third day when the men were still in pain, Dinah’s broth-ers, Simeon and Levi, attacked the city and slew all the males. They rescued Dinahfrom Shechem’s house, confiscated the Hivite livestock, looted their houses, andcaptured the children and women.

The horrific rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19–21) commences as wellby introducing the victim, a nameless concubine. She deserted her husband, a Levitefrom the hills of Ephraim, and returned to her father’s house in Bethlechem. Herhusband followed her “to woo her and win her back.” After staying a few nightsin her father’s home, the Levite and his concubine decided to travel back. Thenarrative describes the period as harsh and dangerous—“in those days . . . therewas no king in Israel; everyone did as he pleased.” Therefore, the traveling com-panions were cautious in choosing a place to spend the night. Eventually, they wereinvited to stay with an old man in the Benjaminite city of Gibeah. The Gibeonitescame pounding on the door and insisted “to know” (sexually violate, humiliate)the visiting Levite. The old man refused, and instead the Levite offered his concu-bine. The woman was gang-raped and tortured all night. The next morning shewas found dead at the old man’s door. As soon as the Levite arrived home, he“picked up a knife . . . cut her up limb by limb into twelve parts” and scatteredthem throughout the Land of Israel. This outrage led to a full-fledged civil warbetween the tribes of Israel and their kinsmen the Benjaminites. The war resultedin the eradication of Gibeah and the remaining Benjaminite cities.

The third rape transpires in the royal family of King David. The victim Tamar,King David’s daughter, was raped by her half brother Amnon, who deceived andlured her into his bedroom. Two years later Tamar’s brother Absalom retaliatedand killed Amnon.

Understanding rape as an acute social problem, feminist interpretation of theseexigent texts—or as feminist scholar Phyllis Trible names them, “texts of terror”—focuses on the rape victims and their predicament rather than on the patriarchalperspective. The biblical narratives leave the readers bewildered with regard to thefate of the two named victims. The object of male discourse, Dinah does not speakfor herself. Tamar, on the other hand, is given a voice during the rape; yet forlornand in mourning she disappears into Absalom’s household, never to be mentionedagain. Despite their relevance and their contribution to a more holistic examinationof the biblical society, contemporary rape theories are still overlooked in biblicalscholarship. See also: Literature, World and American; Patriarchy; Religion.

Suggested Reading: Tikva Kensky Frymer, Reading the Women of the Bible (New York:Schocken Books, 2002); Susanne Scholz, Rape Plots: A Feminist Cultural Study of Genesis34 (New York: Peter Lang, 2002); Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readingsof Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

DINA RIPSMAN EYLON

BIG DAN’S TAVERN CASE. Around 9:00 p.m. on the evening of March 6, 1983,a young woman entered a New Bedford Falls, Massachusetts, tavern, bought a packof cigarettes, and sat down at the bar to have a drink. When the 21-year-old motherof two got up to leave, she was grabbed, hoisted on top of a pool table, andrepeatedly raped by a group of men. The bar remained open during the two-hourordeal while the men shouted and cheered, encouraging each other to “Do it! Do

BIG DAN’S TAVERN CASE 25

it!” No one, including the bartender, called for help. Sometime after midnight thebruised and half-naked woman stumbled out of the bar. A passing motorist cameto her aid and summoned police. Six men were charged with aggravated rape. BigDan’s Tavern, quickly thrust into the national spotlight, voluntarily closed its doorsseveral days later.

Groups quickly rallied, in support of both the victim and the defendants. Nearly2,500 marched in front of city hall, carrying banners stating, “Rape Is Not a Spec-tator Sport.” Meanwhile the Committee for Justice helped raise bail for the defen-dants.

Newspaper accounts reported that the crime was causing great pain to the com-munity. Once characterized by its thriving whaling industry and flourishing textilemills, by 1983 New Bedford was described as economically and psychologicallydepressed. Its 98,000 residents—60 percent of whom were of Portuguese descent—suffered from one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. Intense mediascrutiny, much of it focused on the ethnic backgrounds of the defendants who werePortuguese immigrants, resulted in the trial being moved to a nearby town. Calledinto question were not only the character of the victim—who was also PortugueseAmerican—but the character of the bar and indeed that of the whole town as well.Many believed that the entire Portuguese American community was being indicted.

To avoid the defendants implicating each other, the prosecution and defenseagreed to hold two separate trials: Four men would appear in court in the morningand the other two in the afternoon. Courtroom proceedings were translated intoPortuguese for the non-English-speaking defendants and witnesses.

In March 1984, the monthlong trial yielded four convictions of rape, includingprison sentences ranging from 6 to 12 years. A crowd of 2,000 railed against thecourt’s decision, while more than 7,000 participated in a candlelight vigil, blamingthe verdicts on anti-Portuguese sentiment. The victim, reportedly exhausted andliving in fear, moved to Florida with her two children, where she died in an auto-mobile accident in December 1986.

The legacy of the rape case continues. “Big Dan’s” was first in a 1999 BostonGlobe newspaper series titled “Crimes of the Century.” The article recalled thebrutality of the assault that elicited national outrage. Accusations that the victimsocialized with the men prior to the attack and possibly provoked the crimeprompted discussions regarding the degree to which women could be held account-able for their own rape. But as Katharine Baker, a law professor quoted in theGlobe article asserted, this watershed case dictated that “once a woman says no,the advances that follow are the actions of a felon,” adding unambiguously that itwas “so bad that everyone could look at it and say that wherever the line is, thiscrosses it.”

Big Dan’s also is remembered for the unprecedented attention it garnered, pri-marily through live coverage of the trial by the Cable News Network (CNN). Dailybroadcasts, which repeatedly announced the young woman’s name to 2.5 millionnationwide viewers, fueled controversy and resulted in other media sources drop-ping their policy of shielding a rape victim’s name.

A television movie, Silent Witness, aired in 1985, and Jodie Foster’s portrayal ofthe victim in the 1988 feature film Accused, “inspired” by the events that tookplace in Big Dan’s Tavern, earned her an Academy Award. See also: Films, U.S.;Gang Rape; Rape Shield Laws.

26 BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM

Suggested Reading: Lisa M. Cuklanz, Rape on Trial: How the Mass Media Construct LegalReform and Social Change (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996); ThomasFarragher, “Widely Watched Mass. Trial Reshaped Society’s Attitude toward Rape Victims,”Crimes of the Century: Big Dan’s: First in a Series, Boston Globe, October 18, 1999.

CHRISTINE CLARK ZEMLA

BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM (1723–1780). Among the most influential inter-preters of the English common law, English jurist and writer William Blackstone isbest known today as the author of the classic four-volume treatise Commentarieson the Laws of England (1765–1769). In these volumes, Blackstone consideredseveral principles relating to the common law of rape that were soon incorporatedinto the nascent legal system of the United States.

Blackstone’s exposition of coverture, and the doctrine of marital unity underlyingit, has been fundamental to the development of American rape law. Blackstone’swidely cited formulation “by marriage the husband and wife are one person inlaw” sustained a range of gender-based disabilities. Most crucially, under coverture,a woman, upon marriage, relinquished control of her property as well as her body,both of which became her husband’s lawful possessions. Although Blackstone doesnot address the issue directly, his authoritative delineation of women’s feme covertstatus lent further support to the common law’s long-standing nonrecognition ofrape in marriage (a concept that had earlier been expounded by Sir Matthew Halein The History of the Pleas of the Crown).

Blackstone’s discussion of rape is marked by a skepticism of women’s motivesthat is highly reminiscent of Hale. According to the Commentaries, “rape” is de-fined as “carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will,” the essentialelements of which were codified in U.S. statutory law. So thoroughly did this ap-proach permeate American law that its residue remains apparent two and a halfcenturies later. Yet as feminist critics have in recent decades remarked, this concep-tion of rape derives from the perpetrator’s perspective, while that of the victim isconspicuously elided. Eschewing detailed proscriptions on the crime itself, Black-stone focused instead on the requisites of appropriate feminine response, imposingthe greater burden on raped women in order to protect potentially innocent menfrom the threat of lying accusers.

Through his celebrated Commentaries, Blackstone had a profound effect on theprosecution of rape and the treatment of its victims in American law and society.In particular, his naturalization of the metaphor of marital unity, his dispropor-tionate emphasis on male victimization, and his manifest suspicion of rape claimantsredounded to the detriment of generations of women, at once invigorating tradi-tional stereotypes of female behavior and discouraging evenhanded prosecution ofthe crime. See also: Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols.(reprint, Facsimile of the First Edition, with an introduction by Thomas A. Green, Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1979).

LISA CARDYN

“BLAMING THE VICTIM” SYNDROME. Blaming the Victim Syndrome refers tothe pervasive tendency to blame a victim or to hold her responsible in some wayfor having been raped. Concepts of female sexuality over time have influenced the

“BLAMING THE VICTIM” SYNDROME 27

cultural definition of rape. In the Middle Ages, women were prized for their virgin-ity, fertility, and ability to increase family prosperity through marital contracts.Thus, rape was viewed as a crime against women’s male guardians. As womenbecame politically and legally autonomous, however, the issue became more com-plex. Shifting sexual mores, particularly in the twentieth century, which encouragedwomen to embrace their sexuality, sharpened the dichotomy between the “goodgirl” and the “bad girl.” Unfortunately, the judicial system has traditionally char-acterized rape victims as bad girls and has either blamed them for the crime or hasdiscounted their claims altogether. This disregard for victims has its origins in theenduring male myths of rape.

One of the most enduring rape myths is the belief that a woman cannot be rapedagainst her will. This idea has its origins in science and the law. In regard to science,medieval physicians and scientists believed that women had to achieve orgasm inorder to conceive a child. Therefore, if a woman was raped and authorities laterdiscovered her pregnant, then her accusations were discounted, and she bore theblame for her condition. Although the medical theories surrounding female orgasmand pregnancy began to wane in the seventeenth century, medical literature contin-ued to doubt the veracity of women’s claims of rape.

The legal ideology of this myth has a much longer and more complex historyand continued well into the twentieth century. Beginning in the thirteenth centuryin English common law, if a woman was raped, the law required her to immediatelygo to the local authorities and make her accusation. Local officials subjected her toan inspection, and if sufficient evidence existed, then charges were brought againsther rapist. As the American legal system derives from English common law, thenotion of sufficient evidence made its way into American law, where it remaineduntil the 1970s. The biggest problem with placing the burden of proof on rapevictims lies in the way in which this provision characterizes women; by treatingwomen’s rape claims as suspect from the beginning, these laws perpetuated thenotion that women are not trustworthy. In fact, until the creation of special victims’units and the increased use of female police officers in investigating sexual assaultcomplaints, rape had the highest rate of spurious claims as a result of male officers’distrust of victims’ stories.

The myth does not end with the police. When rape victims enter the courtroom,defense attorneys challenge their claims again. Until the 1970s, if a woman did nothave corroborating evidence such as bruising, vaginal tears, or an eyewitness, thenprosecutors could not even bring the case to trial. However, if the case went tocourt, defense attorneys often went to great lengths to demonstrate to juries thedifficulty of raping a moving target. In one instance, a lawyer attempted to inserta pencil into the opening of a spinning cola bottle as proof that a woman cannotbe raped against her will. Such courtroom antics, while effective with juries, serveonly to redirect the blame for rape toward the victims.

In addition to blaming women for not successfully fighting off their attackers,the legal system has effectively placed women on trial for their past sexual history.Before the implementation of rape shield laws, and even afterward, defense attor-neys have questioned victims regarding their sexual habits, style of dress, and be-havior with the opposite sex. This line of questioning is intended to convince juriesthat the victim asked to be raped by placing herself in a dangerous situation or bydressing provocatively, leading her attacker to believe that she was interested inhaving sexual intercourse. Rape victims often ask themselves these same questions,

28 BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

and the courtroom experience intensifies the guilt that they feel, particularly as thelegal system tends to favor the accused.

Rape is often described as a crime easy to claim and difficult to prove. By sup-porting this mentality, the legal profession and lawmakers have placed the blamefor rape squarely on the victims. The old dictum that “good girls don’t get raped”continues to affect rape survivors, furthering the notion that the victim somehowcontributed to the crime. Feminists have attempted to abolish these notions throughthe redefinition of rape as a crime of male power over women, rather than as asexual offense rooted in passion and desire. It is their hope that the politicizationof rape will remove the blame from the victims and return it to the offenders. Asgender ideologies remain inextricably tied to sexual behavior, women continue tobear the burden of blame for rape. See also: Blackstone, Sir William; Clothing;Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1975); Karen J. Maschke, ed., The Legal Response to Violenceagainst Women (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997).

CATHERINE MAYBREY

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. The war in Bosnia (1991–1995) was a genocidal cam-paign carried out by the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and by Serbian irregularand paramilitary forces against the country’s Muslim residents. The war wasbrought about by the breakup of Yugoslavia. While rape takes place in almost everywar, the Bosnian conflict was unique for the role rape played in efforts to eradicateMuslims in the country. Whereas rape is usually secondary to the actions of themilitary, in the Bosnian war the degradation of Muslim women was one of theprimary aims of the conflict. Raping them was part of the genocidal campaignagainst Muslims, euphemistically called “ethnic cleansing.” Rape was used to sys-tematically humiliate and terrorize Muslim and Croatian women. The exact numberof incidents is unknown, though European investigators stated that 20,000 womenwere raped in 1992. The estimates of those killed, men and women, range from150,000 to 250,000. As author Beverly Allen has attempted to explain, the per-petrators of these heinous acts implied some twisted logic by which the act of rapewould cancel out the victim’s cultural identity. If the victim became impregnated,she would be detained long enough to ensure that she could not abort her fetusand the offspring would be considered nothing less than “a little Serb soldier.”

Since Muslim women typically do not have sex before marriage, the physical andemotional trauma of rape brought with it the strong possibility of rejection fromsociety, living without marriage, and childlessness. However, the rapes were notlimited to these women, as girls below the age of 12 and women over the age of60 were also assaulted. Sex crimes were also carried out against Bosnian men inthe detention camps, who were forced to commit sexual acts on each other.

A brief review of the history of the Balkans is necessary to explain the tensionsamong the different ethnic groups since these tensions date back to the time of theOttoman Empire. The Islamic Ottoman Turks defeated Serbia in the battle of Ko-sovo in 1389. This humiliating event is often alluded to in Serbian nationalisticpropaganda. Bosnia, too, became part of the Ottoman Empire, but not until manyyears later. Many Bosnians voluntarily became Muslims in the fifteenth and six-teenth centuries, but Bosnian Muslim culture maintained a notable distinction from

BOSTON STRANGLER 29

much of the Islamic world, as evidenced in its architecture as well as its customsand lifestyles.

In March 1992, Bosnia declared independence. Although Muslims, Serbs, andCroats joined in calling for peace, the JNA and Serbian paramilitary units beganattacks immediately. The Bosnian Muslims and Croats were quickly overwhelmed.Attacks in the Serbian war against Bosnia took on a loose pattern. Because theycontrolled the army, the Serbs had a near monopoly on weapons, especially artil-lery. The Yugoslav army would bombard defenseless areas for days, then Serbianparamilitary forces would be sent in. The paramilitary groups were made up ofSerbian ultranationalists, criminals, and the unemployed. When these forces arrived,they would round up and execute the non-Serbian leaders. In some instances, suchas in Srebrenica, nearly all the Muslim men were executed and then buried in massgraves. In other cases, Muslim and Croatian men of fighting age were sent to de-tention camps, where thousands of them died as a result of being tortured, beaten,and starved. With the men gone, the women were then at the mercy of the Serbs.

Thousands of these women were raped. The irregular forces often held Muslimwomen captive for weeks or months in “rape camps” while they were repeatedlysexually assaulted. The war was marked by the inability or unwillingness of theUnited Nations and the international community to recognize and stop the atrocitiesin Bosnia. Repeated exposure of these crimes in the media finally forced authoritiesto acknowledge the problem. UN peacekeepers were sent to Bosnia but were unableto stop the violence. In December 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed. Thispeace agreement recognized the international boundaries of Bosnia and Herzego-vina and provided for two roughly equal governments: a Bosnian Muslim-CroatFederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska. TheInternational Crime Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was created toprosecute war crimes there. As of 2004, a few of the perpetrators of rape, torture,and enslavement have been convicted, but others such as Serbian president Slo-bodan Milosevic are still being tried before the tribunal or are appealing decisions.As of March 2004, Milosevic was about halfway through his trial, but the UnitedStates was still pressing Serbia to turn over 16 indicted war criminals to the UnitedNations tribunal. See also: Comfort Women; Genocide; MacKinnon, Catharine A.;War Crimes.

Suggested Reading: Beverly Allen, Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Fact Sheet onICTY, http://www.un.org/icty/glance/procfact-e.htm (a listing of the status of war criminalsindicted by the ICTY); Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/02/serbia0222.htm; Rape as a Crime against Humanity, http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/rape.html; Andras Riedlmayer, A Brief History of Bosnia-Herzegovina, http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/briefhis.htm; Alexandra Stiglmayer, Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994).

ERIC SKINNER

BOSTON STRANGLER. Albert DeSalvo (1931–1973), known as the BostonStrangler, confessed to 11 of 13 rape-killings that took place in the Boston areabetween June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964. The first killing attributed to DeSalvowas that of Anna Slesers, a 55-year-old woman found raped with an unknownobject, strangled with her bathrobe belt, and positioned to expose her vagina to

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those entering the apartment. The next five victims fit the same pattern as the Sleserskilling: Caucasian women between the ages of 65 and 87 who had allowed theassailant into their homes, raped with no semen present, strangled with one of theirown items, and often positioned to shock. The seventh killing, of a 21-year-oldAfrican American student, Sophie Clark, ended suspicions that the strangler was a“mother killer.” Following the final murder, of 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, whowas raped with a broom handle and positioned with a greeting card at her feet,Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke took over the investigation. Statedetectives focused on Albert DeSalvo, a married father of two charged with at-tempted rape. DeSalvo admitted to being the Green Man, responsible for rapingwomen in four states while wearing green work pants. He soon confessed to 11 ofthe Boston murders, possibly in an effort to claim reward money for his family.DeSalvo provided details of the crime scenes and convinced his defense attorney,F. Lee Bailey, of his guilt, though forensic experts expressed doubts that one mancommitted all of the killings. No physical evidence linked DeSalvo to the murders,and witnesses could not identify him. DeSalvo stood trial only for the Green Mancrimes and received a life sentence. Sent to Walpole State Prison in 1967, he wasmurdered in the infirmary. See also: Foreign-Object Rape; Serial Rape and SerialRapists.

Suggested Reading: Gerold Frank, The Boston Strangler (New York: New American Li-brary, 1988).

CARYN E. NEUMANN

BROWNMILLER, SUSAN (1935– ). What helped bring discussions of rape frominside the women’s liberation movement to mainstream audiences was the publi-cation of writer and feminist activist Susan Brownmiller’s widely read Against OurWill: Men, Women and Rape in 1975. This controversial bestseller is a significanttext of American feminism; it detailed the political uses of rape, revising the popularconceptions of rape from a crime of lust to a means of enforcing patriarchy. AsBrownmiller so famously wrote, rape is “nothing more or less than a consciousprocess of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”

Brownmiller was born and raised in Brooklyn and attended Cornell University.She was introduced to activism through her experiences with the Congress on RacialEquality (CORE) 1964 Freedom Summer, registering southern black voters, andbecame involved in the feminist movement through consciousness-raising groups.In 1969 she was a founding member of the New York Radical Feminists (NYRF)and helped organize Speak-Out Against Rape in 1971.

Published in 1975, Against Our Will argued that both the possibility and actualityof rape are pervasive, culturally condoned tools of oppression that men use toestablish their manhood. Brownmiller drew on psychoanalysis, literature, sociology,law, and mythology in providing one of the first histories of rape. She analyzedrape from the Old Testament through feudalism as a crime against men’s ownershipof women as property, and modern perceptions of rape as a crime of passion anda violation of chastity. She then discussed contemporary issues such as racism,prison rape, and homosexual rape in terms of sexual violence as an exercise ofpower.

The most sustained feminist critique of Brownmiller’s writing came from blackfeminists, who were quick to critique Brownmiller’s analysis of rape as a means of

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intimidation that knows no race distinctions, arguing instead that racism is an es-sential component of rape of women of color. Brownmiller’s retelling of the EmmettTill rape case was especially problematic for many feminists because it reinscribedracist stereotypes. These critiques of Brownmiller argued for more specific exami-nations of rape in particular social, cultural, and economic contexts.

After the publication of Against Our Will, Brownmiller stayed active in the fem-inist movement, known largely for her anti-pornography writings such as “Let’sPut Pornography Back in the Closet,” originally published in Newsday in 1979.Brownmiller’s other major books are Femininity (1984) and her history/memoir ofher experiences in the feminist movement, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution(1999). See also: Race and Racism; Rape, Causes of.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution(New York: Dial, 1999).

ANDREA LOWGREN

C

CAMPUS RAPE. Campus rape is a sexual assault that is associated in some waywith a college or university. In many cases, the victim or perpetrator is a studentat that institution of higher education (IHE); in other cases, the assault occurs onor near the campus.

Accurate statistics on campus rape are difficult to obtain, because many womendo not report their assaults to the IHE or the police. Various studies conductedover the past two decades have produced a wide range of estimates: One studynumbers the victims as 12 percent of college women; another says 78 percent.Nationwide, the age group with the highest number of rape victimizations is 16–24, which coincides with the traditional age bracket for college women. The mostgenerally accepted statistic reports that one in four female college students experi-ences campus rape. The average victim is an 18-year-old woman.

Campus rape falls into two general categories: stranger rape and acquaintancerape. Stranger rape is perpetrated by someone entirely unknown to the victim. Ac-quaintance rape includes any person the victim knows, from a casual acquaintancesuch as a classmate or friend to a boyfriend or spouse. Date rape and party rapeare more specific categories of acquaintance rape based on the context of the re-lationship. Date rape occurs during a dating relationship, ranging from a first dateto a committed relationship. Party rape includes situations where the victim andperpetrator are strangers but part of the same social situation.

Campus rape occurs most often in dormitories, off-campus housing, or fraternityhouses. Many assaults occur during or after parties, and one or both of thoseinvolved have usually consumed alcohol. Eight out of 10 campus rapes are ac-quaintance rapes, and 57 percent involve a date. The assailants generally ignore thewoman’s verbal and physical protests and use verbal coercion and, at times, phys-ical force or the threat of force. Although the experiences are psychologically trau-matic, the victims rarely reveal their assaults, with only about 5 percent reportedto the police and 58 percent revealed to anyone at all. Few of the victims of campus

CAMPUS RAPE 33

rape seek counseling after being raped. Some rape victims drop out of school ortransfer to another university.

Campus rape is underreported for several reasons. First, many victims believethat they are at fault for the assault, perhaps because of drinking, accepting a date,or being at the man’s residence. Second, many women do not report their assaultsin the fear that they will be subjected to further pain and humiliation at the handsof the college authorities or police. They fear the authorities will not take theirassault seriously or will consider them responsible. Also, some students do notreport rapes because they do not want their parents to know. And finally, somevictims do not even realize that their experience can be considered rape.

Every college or university responds to reports of campus rape differently. Victimsare usually presented with two options: pursue criminal charges or use the campusjudicial system. Criminal prosecution is time-consuming and requires strong evi-dence; in addition, many prosecutors do not believe they can win cases of acquain-tance rape and decline to press charges; thus campus justice may be the only optionavailable to the victim. Advocates of campus justice say their method is swift, sen-sitive, and private and may allow for more assailants to be found guilty than doescriminal prosecution. However, campus justice has numerous drawbacks. The mostserious punishment for assailants is expulsion; and many who have been foundguilty receive lighter sentences, such as community service or probation. Cases arehandled in a variety of settings; some IHEs suggest rape charges be adjudicatedwith mediation, while others prefer disciplinary hearings. The methods used in dis-ciplinary hearings vary widely. Some hearings involve lawyers, student or facultyadvocates, and other witnesses, while others may include just the victim, assailant,and a few administrators. Hearings may be open or closed to the public; however,open hearings generally prove more traumatic for the victim. Some IHEs have triedto protect the privacy of the assailant by claiming that the Federal EducationRecords and Privacy Act forbids disclosure of the assailant’s punishment to thevictim and community at large. However, the 1992 Ramsted Amendment requiresthat both parties be notified of the outcome of a hearing, thus protecting the victim’srights. Critics of campus justice note the conflict of interest that occurs when IHEsadvise rape victims to use campus justice rather than press criminal charges, formany IHEs have preferred to protect their reputations and avoid potential lawsuitsfrom the accused rapists if they are expelled. More recently, some victims of campusrape have turned to civil litigation to adjudicate their cases. This process lendsgreater control to the victim, who is merely a witness in criminal or campus judicialproceedings; the assailant, if found guilty, pays financial compensation rather thanreceiving prison time.

Colleges and universities have used a variety of strategies to address and preventcampus rape. Many IHEs have now created clear policies about unacceptable sexualbehavior that include strict penalties and have educated all members of the academiccommunity, including faculty and staff. Acknowledging that most campus rapes arenot committed by strangers, many students receive acquaintance rape educationboth at freshman orientation and throughout their college years. Women are alertedto the dangers of supposedly nonrisky settings, such as dorm rooms, especially whenalcohol is present, and taught specific tactics against verbal and physical coercionand aggression by male acquaintances. Men are educated about what constitutesrape and the importance of verbal consent. Some IHEs reinforce risk reduction

34 CAMPUS SECURITY ACT (CLERY ACT)

education at meetings in dormitories and Greek houses and in seminars for studentorganizations, especially athletic teams and fraternities. When an assault does occur,the strategy most often recommended is for all policies and penalties to be swiftlyand uniformly enforced, which sends the message to potential rapists that campusrape will not be tolerated. See also: Campus Security Act (Clery Act); Rape Preven-tion; Sexual Assault, Drug-Facilitated.

Suggested Reading: Nina Bernstein, “With Colleges Holding Court, Victims Can LearnBitter Lessons,” New York Times, May 5, 1996; Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot, SexualAssault on Campus: The Problem and the Solution (New York: Lexington Books, 1993);Mary Koss, “Rape on Campus: Facts and Measures,” Planning for Higher Education 20(Spring 1992): 21–28; Sally K. Ward, Kathy Chapman, Ellen Cohn, Susan White, and KirkWilliams, “Acquaintance Rape and the College Social Scene,” Family Relations 40 (January1991): 65–71.

ROBIN E. FIELD

CAMPUS SECURITY ACT (CLERY ACT). The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Cam-pus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (1998), amended the CrimeAwareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, is commonly referred to as the Stu-dents’ Right-to-Know Act, the Jeanne Clery Act, and the Campus Security Act. Thelegislation, named in memory of brutally raped and slain Lehigh University fresh-man Jeanne Ann Clery, requires all federally funded colleges and universities topublicly disclose information on campus crime and security policies. The act ensuresaccess to information but is distinct and separate from the prosecution of the as-sailants, crime protection programs, and victim support services.

The legislation stipulates four mandatory requirements for the schools: to main-tain a daily log of all reported and alleged crimes, timely notification of crimes thatthreaten campus safety, publication of a consolidated security report, and notifi-cation to all students of the existence of that report. The report must be publishedby October 1 of each year and is commonly available on the institutional Web site.It must include program and policy statements, including where to report crimes,security policies, access to facilities, procedures for victims of sexual offenses, andthe jurisdictional authority of campus police. The most recent three years of statis-tics are reported for eight types of crimes: forcible and nonforcible sexual offenses,criminal homicide (murder and manslaughter), aggravated assault, hate crimes, rob-bery, arson, burglary, and vehicle theft. A forcible sexual act is one committedagainst the will of the victim or where the victim is not capable of consent, andincludes rape, sodomy, fondling, and sexual assault with an object. A nonforciblesexual act is unlawful sexual intercourse, where the victim is below the legal ageof consent (statutory rape) or where the laws prohibit marriage between the two(incest). Numerous agencies publish statistics collected under the act, including theschools and the Office of Post-Secondary Education (U.S. Department of Educa-tion). The implementation of the legislation, and the resultant increase in the dis-closure of information on campus crime and security policies, has been creditedwith increasing student safety on campuses throughout the United States.

Critics of the act, such as the American Council on Education, claim a lack ofclarity in the interpretation and implementation of the act, due to the numerousstatute amendments. The National Organization for Women (NOW) suggests thecontradiction inherent in a university, which needs to attract new students and

CASTRATION 35

funding, in publicizing crime statistics. NOW claims campus administrators counselstudents against reporting rape to the civil authorities, then deal with this violentcrime as an administrative matter within the university. This claim is supportedwith the fact that a minimal number of rapes are statistically reported, yet over 20percent of postsecondary women students have been raped or forced into noncon-sensual sexual acts. See also: Campus Rape; Rape Statistics.

Suggested Reading: American Council on Education, “Campus Crime,” Easing a CostlyBurden: The Higher Education Committee Responds to the FED.UP Initiative, June 21,2001, Sect. III (c); From Understanding to Compliance: Your Campus and the Clery Act(Long Beach: Office of Chancellor, California State University, Long Beach, 2002); for in-stitutions implementing the Jeanne Clery Act, a sample reference guide and video are bothavailable from http://www.calstate.edu/clery.

LAURIE JACKLIN

CASTRATION. Castration is a practice of body mutilation by the removal of thetestes. Although castration in the traditional, surgical sense is gradually being con-signed to history, it is still recorded nowadays as a form of punishment for rapistsand child molesters, as a religious ritual, or as a symbolic act of subduing an enemyin a time of war.

The rationale behind castration as it is applied to sex offenders is that it resultsin the reduction of testosterone levels, which means diminished libido and reduceddeviant sexual activity. According to studies conducted in a number of Europeancountries, between the years 1929 and 1959, less than 10 percent of convictedrapists recommitted sexual offenses after castration, whereas recidivism rates fornoncastrated males are estimated to be as high as 60 percent. It could therefore beeffective both as punishment and treatment, but disciplinary surgical castration isnowadays viewed as highly inhumane and is no longer practiced legally in theWestern world.

In this situation, medical research is conducted in an effort to produce a satisfyingalternative. Chemical castration through the administration of drugs has recentlybeen tested on convicted sexual offenders. Drugs in application nowadays, such asmedroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), lower blood levels of testosterone, which inturn reduces a male’s erectile ability and tends to bring beneficial behavioral effects.Many experts venture to opine that MPA appears effective, as recidivism ratesamong disturbed males who underwent treatment drop visibly. But as critics pointout, this form of prevention has limited effectiveness, especially in the case of pe-dophiles. Although castrated offenders are physically unable to penetrate their vic-tims, many nevertheless still demonstrate sexual anxiety and are likely to abusechildren in other ways. Moreover, as other critics argue, castration in any form isunconstitutional.

The legal status of castration has varied from society to society. After hundredsof years of castration being an-eye-for-an-eye-style punishment for sexual crimes inancient Rome, especially for adultery, Emperor Hadrian regarded it with extremerepugnance and declared that it was a crime on a par with murder. Similarly, aprohibition against castration was added to the original six Talmudic command-ments. But in other cultures it was endorsed as an official form of punishment fora range of crimes, as was the case of ancient China’s laws of Han. Castration wasalso the common sentence for rape and adultery in ancient India, Egypt, among the

36 CELEBRITY RAPISTS

Huns, and in medieval Europe. Not infrequently, it was also a fate befalling ho-mosexuals, both because homosexuality itself was commonly considered a sexualcrime and because homosexuals were believed to be more reliable as guards of thechastity of women in harems. Castration for this purpose was endorsed by theShariah, the Court of Islamic Law. Because sexual relations between individuals ofuneven social stations were deemed unacceptable, castration was often used to pun-ish the one of inferior status. A familiar example is the fate of American slavesaccused of raping white women. In the twentieth century, castration was reinsti-tuted for a few decades in several European countries as a sentence for sex offend-ers.

Apart from a history of being judicial punishment and treatment, castration isnot infrequently resorted to, extrajudicially, as a form of vengeance. In 1936, aTokyo geisha Sada Abe, 31, was apprehended on charges of having castrated herunfaithful lover in his sleep. Perhaps the best-known case of castration committedin a desire for vengeance is recounted in the work of the medieval French philos-opher Pierre Abelard describing his tragic love affair with his young pupil Heloıse.Abelard had been entrusted with Heloıse’s education by her uncle Fulbert, one ofthe clergy of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Heloıse and Abelard fell in love,had a son, and were married secretly. Soon Abelard was castrated at the instigationof Heloıse’s enraged relatives, clearly reassured in their vindictiveness by strongreligious convictions and a grotesque sense of morality.

In fact, castration in religious contexts is fairly common. The myth of Attis, abeautiful youth who castrated himself, gave rise to a fanatical cult whose devotees,called galli, performed an orgiastic dance culminated in self-castration. Nowadays,in the Western world, self-castration for religious reasons is performed by fanaticsdriven by the extreme belief that carnal pleasures are sinful, and potential temp-tation should be eliminated. Religion-related castration is also practiced in parts ofthe United States and Mexico as a holdover of the widespread ascetic movementthat emerged in Europe during the Middle Ages. See also: Prosecution; Rape Laws.

Suggested Reading: Gary Taylor, Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood(New York: Routledge, 2000); Peter Tompkins, The Eunuch and the Virgin: A Study ofCurious Customs (New York: Bramhall House, 1962).

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

CELEBRITY RAPISTS. As men famous first by name and then by crime, celebrityrapists have stirred up controversy for many types of sexual assault: date rape,statutory rape, use of date rape drugs, and gang rape. Celebrity rapists includeathletes, movie stars and entertainment moguls, business tycoons, and politicosfrom prominent families. Since celebrity rapists have money, power, and influence,their clout may cloud the public’s and the press’s opinion of the accusations againstthem and their accusers, as well as influencing the evidence, trial process, and assome critics say, justice.

Celebrity rape allegations, trials, and convictions are publicized in a mad mediafrenzy. Kobe Bryant, a forward for the Los Angeles Lakers, is facing a hotly con-tested upcoming trial for raping a hotel employee at the Cordillera Lodge & Spain Denver, Colorado, on June 13, 2003. Bryant has insisted that he had consensualsex with the woman. Pretrial hearings concerning issues such as whether to admitthe alleged victim’s sexual past have taken months. In March 2004, she asked the

CELEBRITY RAPISTS 37

judge to set a trial date, noting that she had received hundreds of death threats.Pop entertainer Michael Jackson has been formally charged with sexual assault ofa child. In March 2004, a grand jury convened to determine if there was enoughevidence to indict him for child molestation. With each celebrity case, journalists,fans, women’s rights advocates, and armchair detectives engage in heated publicdiscussion over the merits of the charges.

With so many accusations surrounding celebrities so often, some have begun towonder if raping women is part of the lifestyles of celebrity men. Many athletesare accused of sexual misconduct, and some have gained a reputation for it. MikeTyson, a heavyweight prizefighter, for instance, has been accused of rape at leasttwice and convicted once. In 1992 Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison andserved three years before being released on parole. Angry at getting caught, he toldreporter Greta Van Susteren for USA Today, “I just hate her [the victim’s] guts.. . . Now I really do want to rape her.”

Along with professional athletes, famous Hollywood personalities, business ty-coons, and members of prominent political families have graced police blotters forrape charges. Fugitive Max Factor heir Andrew Luster was captured in Mexicorecently nearly a year after fleeing from a rape conviction for poisoning and rapingthree women. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, a silent film star, was accused of raping,brutally sodomizing with a bottle and broken glass, then killing a woman in 1921.He was acquitted. Sometimes Hollywood men’s legendary reputations are elevatedwith rape allegations. Errol Flynn was acquitted for statutorily raping two girls in1942, but the scandal increased his popularity. Similarly, the Kennedy name is oftencasually linked to rape. William Kennedy Smith, nephew of Massachusetts SenatorEdward Kennedy, was charged in 1991 with rape in Palm Beach, Florida, andacquitted. Years earlier, Michael Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s son, was accused ofraping his children’s underage babysitter.

Some other prominent celebrities have beaten statutory rape charges as well. Starsaccused of raping young women include R&B artist R. Kelly, who was recentlyindicted on 21 counts of child pornography after he taped himself having sex withunderage girls. Director Roman Polanski fled the United States in 1977 after ad-mitting to having sex with a 13-year-old girl at the home of actor Jack Nicholson.After a plea bargain was dismissed, Polanski fled to Europe hours before he wasto be sentenced to up to 50 years in prison. Polanski has not returned to the UnitedStates.

Many stars, such as Rob Lowe, have pled to lesser charges. Lowe was sentencedto 20 hours of community service to avoid criminal charges after taping himself insex acts with a 16-year-old in 1988. Still, many Hollywood celebrities never facecharges for questionable under-age relationships.

Some conjecture links celebrity culture—a cult of personality that props up thefamous to larger-than-life proportion—and rape culture—a prevalent social accep-tance of persistent violence against women. It is always news when celebrities arehaving sex. Sex, stardom, and felonies, and the compounded combination of them,sell newspapers. When a celebrity is accused of rape, the media feasts on a buffetof salacious details, and the public reacts with dissonant fascination and disbelief.It is understandable: A hero, by definition, can’t be a criminal. And vice versa. Aglimpse at media news coverage, Web blogs, and op-ed columns reveals a patternof typical commentary on both the accused and the accuser.

38 CELEBRITY RAPISTS

Media coverage of the accused celebrity typically focuses on his accomplishmentsas a star and his presumed moral character. Discussion of celebrities’ character seemto fall into three categories: (1) Celebrities, too, sadly, are human (and thus just aslikely to rape), (2) celebrities are model citizens (and thus unlikely to rape anybody),and (3) celebrities are demigods who are used to extra special privileges (and thusmuch more likely to rape and understandably so). Most significantly, fans oftenpledge unfaltering support and claim that the allegations are “out of character.”As if knowing him personally, fans often profess, “He’s not that kind of guy.”Sometimes celebrities attempt to preemptively try their case in the court of publicopinion by reaching out to their fans with elaborate press conferences to showcasetheir wives and families. It is common for press commentaries to rationalize thatwith so much at stake—family, fortune, and reputation—nobody would act thatstupidly. Besides, op-eds sometimes report, celebrities do not need to take sex byforce because they have beautiful wives and millions of young women adoring themvoluntarily. Ultimately, they portray the sex as consensual, or imply that the victimasked for it, shifting the media focus from the accused celebrity to the accuser.

In celebrity rape cases, the press often puts the alleged victim on trial. Vilifiedcharacterizations of alleged victims are thrown around by the pubic to discreditthem: accusers become accused liars, sluts with a past, golddiggers, and homewreckers. Nationwide discussion turns the celebrity into the victim—evidenced byop-ed outcries that these men are easy targets preyed upon and falsely accused byopportunistic women hungry for fame and attention and lovelorn stalkers who willmake up anything to get close to their idols. Overall, concern for the victim isslighted. Fans say they feel deceived and let down, and lament the loss of their idol,as if rape accusations reveal a monster hiding underneath the squeaky-clean surfaceappearance.

Media stories abound with accused celebrities not because rape is a big story butbecause the man is famous. Celebrities probably do not rape more; we just hearabout it more. As a result, media coverage of celebrity rapists may adversely affectjustice in rape cases for a few reasons. For one, critics claim that celebrities aresubject to intense public scrutiny and less likely to receive a fair trial. Excessivepublicity is seen as a witch-hunt. The extensive media coverage might obscure thefact that all those accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court oflaw. However, the media hype of celebrity rapists might prevent justice for thevictim. Celebrities are less likely to be charged, much less convicted. It has beennoted that many celebrities accused of rape never face charges, let alone see theinside of a courtroom. In recent years there have been many celebrity rape chargesthat have been quickly dismissed. In 2003 the Florida Marlins went to the WorldSeries, but little was made of the fact that their catcher Ramon Castro was releasedon bond, charged with rape the previous year. The Oakland Raiders’ kicker Se-bastian Janikowski was acquitted on charges of possessing gammahydroxybutyrate(GHB), commonly known as the “date rape drug” in 2001. Shielded by a lucrativeentertainment industry, few celebrities are successfully prosecuted in the courts, andthey rarely face internal sanctions on their eligibility to play, make a movie, or runfor office. Ultimately, media coverage of celebrity rapists leaves the impression thatrape in general is not as serious as it is, does not happen as often as it does, andoccurs between relative strangers. See also: Rape Trials.

CHILD RAPE 39

Suggested Reading: Jeffrey R. Benedict, Public Heroes, Private Felons: Athletes and Crimesagainst Women (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997); Jackson Katz, “When You’reAsked about the Kobe Bryant Case,” 2003. http://www.jacksonkatz.com/bryant.html.

SARAH L. RASMUSSON

CENTRAL PARK JOGGER. After 9:00 p.m. on April 19, 1989, a group of at least40 youths went on a rampage in Central Park in New York City. According to allreports, these youths set out to mug, rob, scare, and beat anyone who crossed theirpaths. Records show that the youths robbed and beat up a homeless man, accosteda couple on a tandem bicycle, and assaulted two male joggers. The attacks were soextensive and so vicious that the term “wilding” was coined to explain their be-havior. A 28-year-old investment banker, later known as the Central Park Jogger,became the focus of attention and the symbol of the unprovoked attacks. This well-educated, middle-class white female was raped, beaten, and left for dead. When theunidentified jogger was discovered, she was gagged and unconscious, her left eyehad been torn from the socket, she exhibited symptoms of severe brain damage,and she had lost at least three-fourths of her blood. Neither the officers who foundher nor the medical team who treated her believed that she would survive. Identifiedonly by a distinctive ring she wore, the jogger remained in a coma for 12 days andwoke with no memory of the attack.

Police arrested five teenagers, all either black or Latino, and charged them withthe attack. Four of the youths confessed on videotape, providing graphic descrip-tions of their actions. The Central Park Five served from 7 to 11 years in prison.In December 2002, Matias Rayes, then in prison for murder and serial rape, con-fessed to the crime. DNA evidence collected at the time of the crime identified himas the rapist. The cases against Kharey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray,Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana were overturned, and they sued New YorkCity for $250 million. The New York Police Department was cleared of wrong-doing and continues to believe that the youths were involved in the attack in someway, citing detailed evidence given at the time of the crime. Prosecutors, however,believe that Rayes acted alone.

For 14 years after the attack, the victim was known simply as the Central ParkJogger. She had been known by the pseudonym “Paula Harris” during the trial,and most white media had protected her identity, as well as that of her currentboyfriend. While tension over the trial was at its height, the black press had an-nounced both names, claiming that she had been raped and beaten by the boyfriend.In early 2003, Trisha Meili, then 42, announced that she is the Central Park Joggerin an autobiography detailing the horrors of her experience and the ways in whichshe had reclaimed her life. Meili is still unable to accomplish multitasking, has somememory, balance, and coordination problems, and has permanently lost her senseof smell. See also: Gang Rape; Memoirs.

Suggested Reading: Trisha Meili, I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Study of Hope andPossibility (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003); Timothy Sullivan, Unequal Verdicts: TheCentral Park Jogger Trials (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

CHILD RAPE. Around the globe, societies have tended to view childhood as aunique stage of life and have generally viewed children as innocent beings in need

40 CHILD RAPE

of special protection. To that end, from ancient times to the present, many societieshave acted to try to safeguard children from rape and other forms of sexual deg-radation, though they might define sexual degradation differently from era to eraand from place to place. One way societies have tried to protect young girls isthrough laws that designate a statutory age of consent. Such laws prohibit menfrom having sexual relations with females under a specified age on the legal theorythat they are too young and immature to make informed decisions and, therefore,are incapable of giving a legal consent. Historically, the age of consent was setsomewhere between 10 and 13 years, depending on the era and the culture, andtended to coincide with female puberty, which was also the age at which a femalecould marry without parental permission. Child rape laws punished men who hadsexual relations with females younger than the designated age of consent on parwith the crime of rape, even if the girl consented and the man used no force. Whilesocieties appear to have been less interested in protecting male youths from sexualexploitation, many of the ones that had laws against sodomy used them to punishthe adult participant while not holding the male minor criminally liable.

Though past societies were concerned about the sexual degradation of children,especially females who have suffered the brunt of sexual violence, people of moderntimes have become highly immersed in the issue of child rape. The modern mediahave played a role in raising awareness that there is a problem and that its scopeis global. Yet there are critics who charge that the popular media has been as mucha part of the problem of child rape as the solution. Some critics have asserted thatthe media relate stories of child abuse in the passive voice, as if the problem hasno discernable source and is unavoidable, and that they depict the tales in such alurid and sensationalistic fashion they ultimately titillate more than they inform.Others have claimed that popular mediums, especially of the entertainment variety,have sexualized children in potentially dangerous ways.

Individuals as well as governmental and private organizations engaged in pro-moting the safety and welfare of children are working toward solutions to the age-old problem of child rape. They have much to overcome. There are cultures thatdo not view sexual relations with children as harmful or exploitative. There areplaces in the world where poverty is so pervasive and parents so desperate that theysend a child out to earn money from prostitution, and it is the family’s only meansof survival. There are businesses that purchase young girls from their parents andsell them into sexual slavery. Some cultures retain folkloric traditions that assertthat sexual relations with a virginal female will cure the afflicted of sexually trans-mitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. There are underage children who willinglytrade sexual favors for food, shelter, necessities, or even spending money.

The solutions to preventing and stopping child rape are as difficult as the problemis complex. Governmental agencies of several nations and nongovernmental asso-ciations are making an effort ultimately to stop child rape. The World Congressagainst the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and the United NationsChildren’s Fund have tried to address the myriad fundamental problems that leadto sexual violence against children and to conduct research not only to pinpoint itscauses and prevalence but to clarify such seemingly obvious points as what consti-tutes a child and what constitutes a rape. Some groups define a child as any personunder the age of 18, but others hold that the age should be 16 or even 12 years.Further, the rape laws of many nations are in need of some reform. A number ofcountries have rape laws that preclude the criminal prosecution of men who rape

CLERGY, COUNSELING BY 41

boys as well as of those who use objects such as coke bottles or knives rather thantheir genitals to commit the crime.

The governments of some nations have demonstrated a lack of concern for theissue of child rape within their borders, while others have a host of problems thatofficials deem in more immediate need of their attention. South Africa has experi-enced a rash of child rapes since the end of the apartheid era, as many as 100reported cases a month in some townships, and the government does not have theresources to stem the tide. Thailand has a well-known problem with child prosti-tution, an industry upon which its tourism is dependent. The Thai government hasrecently raised the age of consent and now more strongly enforces the laws againstprostitution. Eastern European countries have seen dramatic increases in the traf-ficking of young girls as prostitutes and sex slaves to the West, and Belgium hasexperienced a spate of child murders in connection with the pornography industry.Some countries have come to understand that their citizens play a role in the sexualexploitation of children in other lands and have passed legislation in response thatallows them to prosecute their citizens if they commit child rape while abroad, evenif their actions are legal in the country of destination. See also: African Women andGirls; Asian Americans; Trafficking in Women and Children.

Suggested Reading: James Kincaid, Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting (Dur-ham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998); Angeliki E. Laiou, ed., Consent and Coercion toSex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies (Washington, DC: Dumbarton OaksResearch Library and Collection, 1993); Karen Mahler, “Global Concern for Children’sRights: The World Congress against Sexual Exploitation,” International Family Planning Per-spectives 23.2 (June 1997): 79–84; Michelle Oberman, “Turning Girls into Women: Re-evaluating Modern Statutory Rape Laws,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminality 85.1(1994): 15–79.

MARY BLOCK

CLERGY, COUNSELING BY. Members of religious organizations such aschurches, synagogues, or mosques may seek out a member of the clergy for coun-seling after being raped or after a family member has been raped. They are usuallyseeking emotional and spiritual support to cope with the trauma of rape as well ashelpful religious resources. There are many spiritual needs and questions that clergycould be asked to address. Clergy may be called upon to describe God’s responseto the victim or the perpetrator and God’s general concern about the crime of rape.

Reassurance of God’s love and concern can be a crucial source of comfort thatthose seeking counseling may need. Clergy may be asked questions like: “Why didGod allow the rape to happen?” Counseling might be requested to address confu-sion about whether or not religious tradition fully supports a person who has beenraped or somehow holds the victim partly responsible, perhaps because of the sex-ual nature of this kind of violence.

For women who have been raped, certain religious attitudes about sexuality mayencourage feelings of shame. For instance, stories about women who sexually temptmen and incite men’s desire to be sinful are part of Christian and Hebrew scriptures.These stories support religious views that hold women responsible for men’s lustfuland “sinful” sexual conduct toward them. These blaming attitudes may createshame, guilt, and confusion for women victims. Similar issues that might be ad-dressed include religious teachings about forgiveness of the perpetrator; a wife’s

42 CLERGY, SEXUAL ABUSE BY

obedience to her husband and marital rape; sex outside of marriage and date rape;homosexuality and rape of a gay man or lesbian. Whenever religious teachingsknown to someone who has been raped could increase their anguish, counseling byclergy may be sought to find alternative religious understandings.

As leaders, clergy teach not only about ancient scripture and traditions but alsoabout contemporary values. They may sometimes uphold attitudes that encourageshame and silence about rape within the distinctive cultural groups they serve.When counseling a woman who has been raped by a man, some black clergy couldbe mainly concerned about protecting the public image of black men from raciststereotyping; some Muslim clerics could be primarily concerned with protecting thehonor of the males in her family; certain Jewish clergy might not believe her becausethey assume that rape does not happen in the Jewish community; some white clergycould see protection of family privacy and the white victim’s reputation as the mainpriority. However, contrary to these examples, clergy from these same groups maybe extremely critical of maintaining shame and silence about rape. Based upon theirunderstanding of the need to take risks and speak out about racism, black clergycould be especially affirming of the rape victim speaking out. Drawing from thestrong emphasis on respecting women in their tradition, Muslim clerics could beprimarily concerned with supporting the victim. Jewish clergy might emphasize thewoman’s sacred worth and the shamefulness of the perpetrator’s defiling acts, ratherthan blaming the victim (see “Blaming the Victim” Syndrome). White clergy mightfocus on feminist theological ideas empowering women to hold perpetrators ac-countable. Balancing their roles as both community leader and counselor to indi-viduals in crisis, clergy will differ on how to conserve particular cultural valueswithout doing so at the expense of the person who has been raped.

There are ethical concerns about the responsibilities of clergy in counseling sit-uations. In several religious traditions clergy have a unique obligation to maintainstrict confidentiality. But should clergy be legally mandated to report it to author-ities if, for example, a teenager confides that she or he has been raped by a familymember? What if a perpetrator of rape confesses to clergy? Should the confidencebe violated? For some, clergy have a moral obligation to society to break confiden-tiality when told about acts, or threat, of physical harm. For others, because oftheir moral obligation to the counselee and sacred vow to God, under no circum-stances should clergy violate the confidentiality entrusted to them.

In the aftermath of rape there are many reasons why counseling by clergy issometimes sought by victims and their families. Counseling offers emotional andspiritual support and teaches important cultural values about rape. In response totheir religion, the broader society, and the person they are counseling, clergy makeimportant choices about how to play a trustworthy and constructive role. See also:Clergy, Sexual Abuse by; Rape Counseling.

Suggested Reading: Mary D. Pellauer, Barbara Chester, and Jane Boyajian, eds., SexualAssault and Abuse: A Handbook for Clergy and Religious Professionals (1987; New York:HarperCollins, 1991).

TRACI C. WEST

CLERGY, SEXUAL ABUSE BY. It is a violation of professional ethics for anyperson in a pastoral role of leadership or pastoral counseling (clergy or lay) toengage in sexual contact or sexualized behavior with a congregant, client, employee,

CLERGY, SEXUAL ABUSE BY 43

or student (adult, teen, or child) within the professional (pastoral or supervisory)relationship. It is wrong because sexual activity in this context is exploitative andabusive.

Ministerial violation of boundaries involving sexualization of a relationship cantake place in the ministerial relationship or the counseling relationship, as well asthe staff supervisory or mentor relationship. When the minister sexualizes the min-isterial or counseling relationship, it is similar to the violation of the therapeuticrelationship by a therapist. When the minister sexualizes the supervisory or mentorrelationship with a staff member or student, it is similar to sexual harassment inthe workplace, and the principles of workplace harassment apply. When a child orteenager is the object of the sexual contact, the situation is one of pedophilia orchild sexual abuse, which is by definition not only unethical and abusive but crim-inal.

For example, in 2002 the crisis of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholicpriests, which had been simmering for years, finally came to a boil. The BostonArchdiocese became the subject of intense scrutiny by the media and numerous civillawsuits filed by adult survivors of childhood abuse by priests. Cardinal BernardLaw, who led the Boston Archdiocese, was pressured to resign. The media reporteda long-standing pattern of cover-up and institutional protection of priest pedophiles.A multimillion-dollar settlement with survivors was finally reached. The U.S. Con-ference of Catholic Bishops issued a new policy and established a National ReviewBoard to monitor diocesan compliance with the new policy.

Although the experience of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States isnot unique, it is illustrative of the historic difficulty of religious institutions toscreen, supervise, and if necessary, suspend abusive religious leaders. Every traditionis confronted with the fact of abusive leaders who take advantage of the vulnera-bility of their followers whether children, teens, or adults.

Sexual contact by clergy and pastoral counselors with congregants/clients under-cuts an otherwise effective ministerial relationship and violates the trust necessaryin that relationship. It is not the sexual contact per se that is problematic but thefact that the sexual activity takes place within the ministerial relationship. Thecrossing of this particular boundary is significant because it changes the nature ofthe relationship, and the potential harm that it causes is enormous.

The behaviors that occur in the sexual violation of boundaries include, but arenot limited to, sexual comments or suggestions (jokes, innuendoes, invitations, etc.),touching, fondling, seduction, kissing, intercourse, molestation, rape, and other sex-ual behavior. There may be only one incident or a series of incidents or an ongoingintimate relationship over time.

Sexual contact by ministers or ministerial counselors in ministerial, professionalrelationships is an instance of professional misconduct that is often minimized orignored. It is not “just an affair,” although it may involve an ongoing sexual re-lationship with a client or congregant. It is not merely adultery, although adulterymay be a consequence if the minister/counselor or congregant/client is in a com-mitted, marriage relationship. It is not just a momentary lapse of judgment by theminister or counselor. Often it is a recurring pattern of misuse of the ministerialrole by a minister or counselor who seems to neither comprehend nor care aboutthe damaging effects it may have on the congregant/client.

Although the vast majority of ministerial offenders in reported cases are hetero-sexual males and the vast majority of victims are heterosexual females, it is clear

44 CLERY, JEANNE ANN

that neither gender nor sexual orientation excludes anyone from the risk of offend-ing (ministers/counselors) or from the possibility of being taken advantage of (con-gregants/clients) in the ministerial or counseling relationship.

There are four basic ethical principles involved in instances of sexual abuse byclergy:

It is a violation of role. The ministerial relationship presupposes certain roleexpectations. The minister/counselor is expected to make available certain re-sources, talents, knowledge, and expertise that will serve the best interests of thecongregant, client, staff member, or student intern. Sexual contact is not part ofthe ministerial, professional role.

It is a misuse of authority and power. The role of minister/counselor carries withit authority and power and the attendant responsibility to use this power to benefitthe people who call upon the minister/counselor for service. This power can easilybe misused, as is the case when a minister/counselor uses (intentionally or uninten-tionally) his/her authority to initiate or pursue sexual contact with a congregant,client, or anyone he/she supervises. Even if it is the congregant who sexualizes therelationship, it is still the minister/counselor’s responsibility to maintain the bound-aries of the ministerial relationship and not pursue a sexual relationship.

It is taking advantage of vulnerability. The congregant, client, employee, or stu-dent intern is by definition vulnerable to the minister/counselor in multiple ways;she/he has fewer resources and less power than the minister/counselor. When theminister/counselor takes advantage of this vulnerability to gain sexual access to her/him, the minister/counselor violates the mandate to protect the vulnerable fromharm. (For Jews and Christians, the protection of the vulnerable is a practice thatderives from the Jewish and Christian traditions of a hospitality code.)

It is an absence of meaningful consent. Meaningful consent to sexual activityrequires a context of not only choice but also mutuality and equality; hence mean-ingful consent requires the absence of fear or the most subtle coercion. There isalways an imbalance of power and thus inequality between the person in the min-isterial role and those whom he/she serves or supervises. Even in the relationshipbetween two persons who see themselves as “consenting adults,” the difference inrole precludes the possibility of meaningful consent.

The violation of ministerial or teaching boundaries by the sexualization of aministerial relationship is a common problem for all religious traditions (Buddhist,Christian, Jewish, Native American, Muslim, etc.). There are unethical and exploit-ative religious and spiritual leaders in every tradition. The misconduct of a fewundercuts the integrity of all religious and spiritual leaders as it violates the trustnecessary for a healthy and meaningful ministerial relationship. See also Child Rape;Clergy, Counseling by; Religion; Sexual Coercion.

Suggested Reading: Marie M. Fortune, Is Nothing Sacred? (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press,1988); Marie M. Fortune, Sexual Violence: The Unmentionable Sin (Cleveland, OH: PilgrimPress, 1993).

MARIE M. FORTUNE

CLERY, JEANNE ANN (1966–1986). On April 5, 1986, freshman Jeanne Cleryslept in her campus dormitory at Stoughton Hall, Lehigh University (Bethlehem,Pennsylvania). A stranger, fellow-student Josoph Henry, entered the dormitorythrough a series of doors, all propped open by pizza boxes, and burglarized her

CLOTHING 45

room. He violently beat, raped, sodomized, then strangled Clery to death in orderto avoid her identifying him later. Henry was convicted and sentenced for numerousoffenses, including rape, first-degree murder, indecent and aggravated assault, andinvoluntary deviate sexual intercourse.

In 2002, Federal District Court Judge Anita Brody set aside Henry’s death sen-tence, arguing that instructions to the jury had been confusing. The NorthamptonCounty Court had 180 days to decide on another sentencing hearing or to sentenceHenry to life imprisonment. On September 1, 2002, the court sentenced him to lifein prison. There is no caveat of “with” or “without” possibility of parole.

From the time of his original conviction and sentencing (1987), Henry spent 15years on death row.

Parents Connie and Howard Clery launched a $25 million civil suit of negligenceagainst Lehigh University. They attributed her death to the lack of disclosure ofinformation about violent crimes and breaches of security on the campus; for in-stance, the school had 181 reports of propped-open dormitory doors during theperiod immediately preceding Clery’s murder. The suit cited the failure of securityand negligence in warning students of dangers on the campus and raised the legalissue of the university’s responsibility and obligation for student safety. Lehigh re-peatedly denied the claims but eventually settled out of court. Clery’s family usedthe settlement to establish Security on Campus, a nonprofit activist organizationdevoted to increasing campus security, victim assistance, and public access to crimestatistics at higher education institutions throughout America. The activist groupalso lobbied for other federal laws, including the Campus Sexual Assault Victims’Bill of Rights (1992) and Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act (2000). See also:Campus Rape; Campus Security Act (Clery Act).

Suggested Reading: Security on Campus (and Jeanne Clery’s story), http://www.securityoncampus.org/; Spalding University, Louisville, KY, SCSD Safety Awareness 2.2 (Fall2002).

LAURIE JACKLIN

CLOTHING. While the subject of clothing typically generates discussions aboutrape myths, which serve to “blame the victim” (see “Blaming the Victim” Syn-drome), clothing is being appropriated increasingly as a means of empowermentfor victims.

The most common association of clothing with rape involves rape myths. Forexample, accusations about the way a woman dresses can easily fall into the “sheasked for it” myth. A woman is understood (by courts, religious groups, or societyin general) of bearing at least partial responsibility for her rape if her clothing isregarded as skimpy or questionable in nature. This argument assumes that if afemale dresses in a provocative manner, then she is a “bad girl” who is looking forany kind of sexual activity, and therefore she is assumed to be a willing participantin any sexual act. The clothing a victim wears also becomes relevant in rape mythsthat seek to provide reasons for the sexually aggressive behavior of men. This mythclaims that men cannot control their sexual urges and that therefore a woman’schoice of dress may provoke an uncontrollable response in men that could lead toa forced sexual act. Feminist theorists and psychologists have noted that both ofthese myths influence and are influenced by a culture that constructs women assubmissive sexual objects and men as aggressive sexual predators in their gender

46 COERCED SEX

and sexual roles. While there is a move to make new generations more cognizantof these dangerous gendered stereotypes, many feel that these ideologies are soengrained in our culture (from movies to music videos to religious beliefs) thatvictims of rape are taught from a very young age to blame themselves for any sexualcrime that may occur.

Mention should be made of some empowering uses of clothing. First, on a lo-gistical level, women’s clothing is a source of incriminating data about the assailant(semen or hair). Second, the Clothesline Project uses clothing as a means of healingand empowerment for survivors and of education for the public. Begun in Massa-chusetts in 1990 and now existing on an international level, victims design shirtsthat express their own suffering and survival; the shirts periodically hang in publicsettings to increase public awareness. See also: “Blaming the Victim” Syndrome;Rape Myths.

Suggested Reading: Martha R. Burt, “Rape Myths,” in Mary E. Odem and Jody Clay-Warner, eds., Confronting Rape and Sexual Assault, Worlds of Women, No. 3 (Wilmington,DE: SR Books, 1998).

JILL GORMAN

COERCED SEX. See Sexual Coercion.

COMFORT WOMEN. Between 1932 and 1946, thousands of women, mostly Ko-rean and Chinese, were captured and imprisoned in “comfort stations” where theywere repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers and sailors. This sexual slavery violatednumerous international laws. Yet little has been done to punish those responsible.Comfort women have lived in silence with the physical and emotional consequencesof their abuse. Only recently have survivors called upon their own governmentsand Japan to make amends for this terror and sexual violence.

The first stations opened in the spring of 1932 in Shanghai, as a response to theraping of local women by the Japanese army and navy. Military rapes, particularlyin Nanking in 1937–1938, were thought to reflect poorly on Japan and to makethe conquered Chinese more difficult to control. The troops, however, saw sexuallicense as one of the few benefits of military life that was harsh, brutally disciplined,poorly provided, and constantly under the specter of combat and death. To boosttroop morale and maintain order among the Chinese, the Japanese high commandinstituted the comfort system.

Comfort stations were built everywhere Japanese troops went, including the frontlines. The “girl army” was under the direct control of the military. The army andnavy built or took buildings for use as stations and supplied provisions for thewomen prisoners. The military set the hours, rules, prices, and hygiene standardsfor the brothels. Management of comfort stations was taught at the army’s ac-counting school. The military also issued “Guidelines for Conducting Medical Ex-aminations of Prostitutes and Serving Women” and provided the doctors whoexamined the women each week. Hopeful that comfort women would help preventthe spread of disease, Brigade Headquarters constantly warned soldiers to checkprostitutes’ health certificates, use condoms and Secret Star Cream disinfecting lu-bricant, and carefully wash their genitals after intercourse. Still, because the troopswere rarely examined, the system did not control the spread of venereal disease.

COMFORT WOMEN 47

Between 50,000 and 200,000 women staffed more than 1,000 comfort stations.While the majority were Korean or Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipina, Indonesian, Vi-etnamese, Indian, Dutch, and Australian women were also enslaved. Some Japaneseprostitutes served as comfort women, but the troops preferred the “tighter fit” ofcaptured women. The vast majority of them were between 14 and 18 years old.Most came from poor families and were illiterate. Some were deceived by promisesof good jobs, others were taken from their families in payment of debts, and morewere simply kidnapped by force. The Japanese argued that women were willing toserve, but the number of volunteers in the girls’ army was quite small. Even if awoman chose to accompany the troops, it was a decision rooted in economic dep-rivation and fear for the welfare of her family who were terrorized by local police.

Captured women were kept in small rooms, which, at best, were furnished witha bed, blankets, and disinfectant liquid. At worst, a mat was placed on a dirt floor.Women were forced to have sex with as many as 30 men a day. Chafed and raw,sex was excruciating, but women were required to be gentle and welcome eachman. The fact that the soldiers called comfort women “public toilets” suggests howbrutally they must have treated them. Few women ever had a day off. They evenworked when infected. The army issued each soldier two condoms a month, butwhen these wore out, the women were expected to wash and reuse prophylactics.When these failed, abortion and surgical sterilization were forced on women. Forthe most part, medication was reserved for military personnel, so sick women suf-fered and died without treatment.

Women fiercely resisted this sexual slavery. Some killed themselves; others cutoff their hair, refused to bathe, or tried to appear ugly so men would not wantthem. Despite armed guards, some tried to run away, but not knowing the languagein a strange land, and with no way to return to their own country, this was futile.Resistance resulted in beatings, starvation, and threats to one’s family. This com-pelled most women to acquiesce.

As Japan neared defeat, soldiers who fought to the death demanded nightly sex-ual service. When units engaged in mass suicide to avoid surrender, the comfortwomen were expected to join in and were murdered if they refused. Although therewas concern that the system would reflect poorly on Japan, when the Allies re-quested comfort stations for their own use, Japan supplied them. These operatedfor the benefit of U.S. soldiers until March 1946, when they were closed becausetoo many American soldiers contracted venereal disease. At that time, comfortwomen were abandoned. No effort was made to return them to their countries,and few women had money with which to travel.

The consequences of this sexual servitude were extreme. Women suffered fromthe aftereffects of venereal disease. There were also psychological injuries like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, alienation, fear of sex, and self-loathing. Theirculture prized male heirs, but many comfort women were left sterile. Asian Con-fucianism upheld female purity as a virtue greater than life. This perpetuated thebelief that any comfort woman who did not kill herself from shame was an abom-ination. Thus, women were afraid to speak of their experiences and suffered insilence.

Only after 1988 did Asian feminists rise up to protect sexual exploitation. Formercomfort women lobbied the International Commission of Jurists and the UnitedNations Human Rights Commission. Their activism led to the United Nation’s 1998report, which argued that sexual violence against women must be prosecuted as a

48 COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET

crime against humanity. While these war crimes continue, they are now punished.The International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwandaissued many indictments on charges of torture and genocide for crimes involvingthe sexual violence against women. Lawsuits brought by former comfort womenhave, however, been rejected. See also: Bosnia-Hergezovina; Nazis; Prostitution;Trafficking in Women and Children.

Suggested Reading: George Hicks, The Comfort Women (New York: Norton, 1994); Yosh-imi Yoshiaki, Comfort Women, trans. Suzanne O’Brien (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2000).

MARY LINEHAN

COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET. The growth of computer technology andwidespread access to the Internet has created numerous new opportunities for crim-inal behavior, especially in the area of sex crimes. Three areas of computer andInternet technology that facilitate sex crimes are chat rooms, newsgroups/Web sites,and computer graphics/video.

Online chat rooms allow computer users to exchange information in real time;they are also used as places for individuals to meet for the purposes of dating orfinding partners for sexual activity. Group conversations attract larger numbers ofparticipants who can break off to other rooms or use email for more private inter-actions. Participants have the option to engage in online sexual banter and play,which reaches various levels of intimacy. Since participants do not see each other,their personal identities are protected; there is no way to prevent individuals fromlying about their ages, genders, or interests. Other forms of chat occur in virtualreality. These sophisticated social forums are part fantasy, part role-play, part pub-lic street corner, and part complex social laboratory. They have a transfixing powerover certain types of participants; a simulated online rape of one participant byanother has actually been documented as a psychologically traumatizing experience.

A widely publicized problem with chat rooms is the threat posed to children whomake online contact with adults; a number of media reports have documentedinstances in which children were abducted by pedophiles who befriended them inchat rooms. While such incidents are uncommon, they are devastating in terms ofthe physical and psychological harm inflicted on the victims. As a result, the Na-tional Center for Missing and Exploited Children has established a list of precau-tions that include limited online time for children and close parental supervision.Similarly, teenagers are suspectible to online overtures from adults to meet offline,often subjecting the teens to statutory rape or other forms of sexual assault. Butthe problem is not limited to children; anyone who makes offline contact with anonline acquaintance can become a victim of criminal sexual acts.

Newsgroups are Web sites that allow users to post and view messages on a varietyof topics; they differ from chat rooms in that they do not operate in real time. Butlike chat rooms, they are locations that can be used for exchanging child pornog-raphy and information leading to the sexual exploitation of women and children.There are numerous examples of child pornography rings that use sophisticatedcomputer techniques to avoid detection; a group named the Wonderland Club usesa code developed by the Soviet KGB to encrypt all of its communications.

A variety of other nonnewsgroup Web sites also sexually exploit women andchildren by disseminating information and distributing pornography. The sex in-

COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET 49

dustry includes a number of large, legal businesses that operate sophisticated Websites charging subscription fees that bring in millions of dollars per year. Tens ofthousands of free pornography sites bring in smaller amounts of money from ban-ner advertisements for larger sites and related businesses. Many of these same Websites also offer access to streaming pornographic videos that can be viewed usingWeb browser plug-ins.

The most egregious Web sites market images and videos of rape and torture.Slave Farm, a Web site registered in Denmark, claims to have the “world’s largestcollection of real life amateur slaves” and encourages men to “submit a slave tothe picture farm.” Images include women being subjected to sexual torture, bond-age, and fetish sadism. The site also allows visitors who pay subscription fees togive real-time commands to women who perform sexual acts in front of Web cam-eras. A number of images (even those that are available for free) show badly injuredwomen with cuts, burns, bruises, welts, and bleeding wounds.

A Web site registered in Moscow advertises itself as “the best and most violentrape site on earth.” Subscribers are offered 30,000 hardcore pornographic images,500 online video channels, and 100 extended-length videos, almost all of themdepicting rape. To induce subscriptions, visitors to the site can download 12 seg-ments of a 13-megabyte video showing a hooded man raping a woman in an office.

In the third category, advancements in computer hardware and software havemade it possible to create lifelike human images or to manipulate photographs ofactual humans. Using a scanner and relatively inexpensive software, anyone canscan a picture of a child and alter it to make it appear as though the child is posingnude or engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Using another type of software, com-puter users can create three-dimensional animated images of humans without scan-ning photographs. While such software is currently very expensive and the resultingimages are easily distinguished from actual persons, it is expected that it will soonbecome very difficult to tell the difference between actual and virtual figures, andthe associated costs will also drop. Even though no actual children are involved,Congress saw fit to pass legislation prohibiting computer-generated child pornog-raphy.

Sexually explicit material is not a new phenomenon, but individuals have neverhad such open access to such a large body of extreme images. Consumers of violentpornography once had to go outside their immediate communities to make theirpurchases and often needed intermediaries to help them find their preferred prod-ucts. Today, the Web gives them immediate access to violent pornography in theirown homes. At no time in history has there been such an advanced rate of distri-bution of sexually explicit material. See also: Child Rape; Pedophilia; Prostitution;Trafficking in Women and Children.

Suggested Reading: Blake T. Bilstad, “Obscenity and Indecency in a Digital Age: The Legaland Political Implications of Cybersmut, Virtual Pornography, and the CommunicationsDecency Act of 1996,” Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal 13 (1997):321–384; Donna M. Hughes, “Symposium on Sexual Slavery: The Trafficking of Womenand Girls into the United States for Sexual Exploitation, The Use of New Communicationsand Information Technologies for Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children,” HastingsWomen’s Law Journal 13 (2002): 127–146; Vincent Lodato, “Computer-Generated ChildPornography: Exposing Prejudice in Our First Amendment Jurisprudence?” Seton Hall LawReview 28 (1998): 1328–1364.

GREGORY M. DUHL

50 COMSTOCK ACT

COMSTOCK ACT. In March 1873, the U.S. Congress passed the first nationalobscenity law to include the category of contraceptives. The new law was namedafter its most vocal supporter and primary author, Anthony Comstock. Comstock,a social purity reformer supported by the New York Young Men’s Christian As-sociation (YMCA), linked birth control and abortion to social problems such aspornography and prostitution, claiming that all of these “vices” posed a risk to thehealth and well-being of American citizens. The Comstock Act made it illegal toimport or circulate any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, pa-per, print or other publication of an indecent character, or any article or thingdesigned or intended for the prevention of contraception or the procuring of abor-tion, nor any article or thing intended or adapted for any indecent or immoral useor nature.” These restrictions made it illegal to distribute birth control information,medical literature on the subject, or actual contraceptive devices through the U.S.postal system, even to victims of rape.

Comstock himself served as the first special agent of the United States Post Officefrom 1873 till his death in 1915. Although the legislation initially targeted dissem-ination of information related to abortion and contraception, Comstock expandedthe purview of the law to censor materials as varied as artwork, the poetry of WaltWhitman, and pamphlets advocating free love and reproductive freedom forwomen. Those found guilty of violating the Comstock Act faced jail terms (up to10 years) and fines (set at a maximum of $5,000). In theory, federal law suppressedbirth control and abortion information from being distributed through the U.S.postal system. In addition to this federal legislation, a number of states passedantiobscenity statutes further restricting sales and possession of “obscene” materi-als, including contraceptives and abortifacients.

While the Comstock Act symbolized expanded federal control over reproductivechoice, Congress did not significantly expand funding for the postal service in orderto ensure that these measures could be adequately enforced. Historian Andrea Toneargues that these restrictions did not eliminate the dissemination of contraceptiveinformation and products. Contraceptive entrepreneurs developed creative strate-gies to safely advertise and market their products, and established companies con-tinued to sell contraceptives to doctors, druggists, and mail-order houses withoutinterference from Comstock. Despite such selective prosecutions and the unwilling-ness of the federal government to wholeheartedly support its enforcement, the Com-stock law represented federal commitment to defining and controlling “obscenematerials” through censorship of the U.S. mail. Provisions of the law remained ineffect until the 1960s when a series of court cases nullified restrictions on birthcontrol information. See also: Free Love Movement.

Suggested Reading: Nicola Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and FamilyReproduction in Victorian America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); Com-stock Act, ch. 258, 17 Stat. 598 (1873); Andrea Tone, “Black Market Birth Control: Con-traceptive Entrepreneurship and Criminality in the Gilded Age,” Journal of American History87 (2000): 435–459.

REGAN SHELTON

CONCEPTION. See Pregnancy.

CONSENT 51

CONSENT. Consent is an issue that constitutes the very essence of rape prosecu-tions. If a woman consents to sexual relations with a man, she cannot accuse himof rape. Consent means to agree to or approve of what is done or proposed, or togive one’s permission. The law recognizes two kinds of consent. An express consentis one that is directly given, either verbally or in writing, and clearly demonstratesan accession of the will of the individual giving it. An implied consent is indirectlygiven and is usually indicated by a sign, an action or inaction, or a silence thatcreates a reasonable presumption that an acquiescence of the will has been given.

The legal standards for a valid and invalid consent are fairly clear and well de-fined. An individual must be mentally and physically capable of granting consent.The consent must be informed; that is, the person giving the consent must under-stand and be knowledgeable as to what he or she is consenting. It is vital that theconsent be voluntary and given wholly of a person’s free will. Typically, the lawinvalidates a consent that is uninformed, has been given in ignorance, or has beenobtained through force, fraud, coercion, or duress. There are exceptions to thesegeneral legal principles, however, and they primarily occur in rape law.

The concept of consent in rape law has changed over time. Defendants can usea consent defense if they are charged with crimes such as assault, battery, trespass,and theft, but rape was the only one where courts demanded physical resistance asproof of nonconsent. At common law, rape could only be committed if sexualintercourse occurred in the absence of the woman’s consent and where it wasagainst her will. A mere verbal expression of dissent did not suffice to prove non-consent in rape cases, though it did in other crimes that allowed a consent defense.The absence of consent is still vital to the crime, but since the mid- to late 1980s,courts have begun to allow women to prove a mere involuntary submission to theact. Where common law mandated proof that a woman resisted to the utmost ofher ability, modern case law is slowly starting to hold that such overt and continuedphysical and verbal resistance is not required if it would be futile or where it wouldresult in more serious bodily harm. The utmost resistance standard has been re-placed with a reasonable resistance rule. The woman’s resistance is still scrutinizedin rape trials, and she must still resist in earnest, but courts are now more likely toconsider the totality of circumstances surrounding the act rather than focusing al-most exclusively on the woman’s behavior.

In theory, modern rape law does not require that a woman do more than herage, strength, health, and all the attending circumstances reasonably support. Com-plainants need not physically or verbally express their lack of consent so long asthey demonstrate it and do so in such a manner that it can readily be implied fromtheir behavior. Also, modern courts have allowed rape convictions in cases wherea woman initially gave her consent and then withdrew it. However, she must retractthe consent before penetration occurs, or there is no rape. Further, the law recog-nizes that some women cannot give a legal consent to sexual intercourse. The testis whether the complainant can understand the nature and consequences of thesexual act and is determined by her ability to exercise reasonable judgment in com-prehending what is being done to her. She must understand that she can refuse toparticipate. Females under a specified statutory age cannot consent to sexual rela-tions. Women of unsound mind or who are physically or mentally incapacitatedcannot consent if they are unable to give an informed consent. However, intercourseobtained through fraudulent or deceptive practices amounts to rape only if a state’s

52 CONTRACEPTION

statute includes fraud as an element of the crime. In the absence of a statute, moderncourts rely on the common law, which mandates that the intercourse be achievedthrough force. Generally, if a woman is capable of consenting and she does so, shecannot charge a man with rape if he beguiled her into acquiescing, even if sheotherwise would have refused him. See also: Child Rape; Mental Disabilities, Peoplewith; Rape, Definitions of; Seduction; Sexual Coercion; Statutory Rape.

Suggested Reading: Susan Estrich, Real Rape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987);West Group, Corpus Juris Secundum: A Contemporary Statement of American Law, vol. 75(St. Paul, MN: Author, 2002).

MARY BLOCK

CONTRACEPTION. See Abortion; Morning-After Pill.

COUNSELING. See Rape Counseling.

COX BROADCASTING CORPORATION V. COHN. In Cox Broadcasting Corpo-ration v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), the right to privacy came into direct conflictwith the right of the free press. In August 1971, the 17-year-old daughter of MartinCohn was raped and murdered, and six youths were arrested and brought to trial.According to Georgia law (26-9901), it was a misdemeanor for members of thepress to publicly identify rape victims. During the trial, a reporter for WSB-TV,owned by Cox Broadcasting Company, identified the victim through examinationof public records and announced her name on Atlanta’s Channel 2 news. The vic-tim’s father sued for monetary damages, arguing that his right to privacy had beenviolated. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the law, and Cox Broadcasting Cor-poration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming protection under the Firstand Fourteenth Amendments.

When the case was argued in 1975, the Court was asked to deal with conflictingconstitutionally protected rights. The Court had officially recognized the implicitright to privacy only a decade before in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479(1965). The First Amendment right to a free press, however, is specifically expressedin the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to infringeon this right. The Fourteenth Amendment had been passed in 1868 to limit stateinterference with constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court overturned Georgia’s law, deciding that since the informationwas rightfully made public, the reporter had a right to identify the victim. JusticeWhite wrote in his decision that the news media had a societal responsibility toinform the public about government proceedings. Since the reporter acted lawfully,the station could not be charged monetary damages. See also: Michigan v. Lucas;Rape Shield Laws; Rules of Evidence.

Suggested Reading: Joel B. Grossman and Richard S. Wells, Constitutional Law and Ju-dicial Policy Making (New York: Longman, 1988).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

CREDIBILITY. Credibility indicates the degree to which something or someone isworthy of belief or confidence. As such, it is a key element in the outcome of legal

CREDIBILITY 53

proceedings, especially regarding sexual crimes. The credibility of both the victimand the perpetrator often rests on the plausibility of the reported crime as well asthe character of the individuals involved. Fundamentally, the issue revolves aroundthe truthfulness of the account and believability of the victim.

Regarding the crime itself, the accuracy of the report, the reliability of the wit-nesses, and the likeliness of the tale are all called into question. The victim’s abilityto repeat the tale without alteration suggests a factual basis, while prevaricationtends to discredit the victim. Objective matters, such as verifying logistical details,provide a foundation that proves either reliable or unstable. In many instances, itis possible to determine whether or not the people involved were indeed in theplaces they claimed to be at the time they claimed to be there. The value of theeyewitnesses, though, may be diminished by inconsistencies in their tales, an un-willingness to participate, or the defamation of their characters.

Even when eyewitnesses accurately place the victim and the perpetrator at thescene, however, it is less common to have witnesses to the attack itself, as sexualcrimes are often committed in isolation. Physical evidence, then, provides anotheravenue for determining the likelihood of the tale. Gathering such evidence requiresthat the victim submit to a medical examination within a specified time period afterthe attack. For various reasons, including embarrassment, shame, and fear, manyvictims do not turn to medical or legal authorities immediately afterward.

Although the notion of credibility deals with facts, without hard evidence, pros-ecuting a sexual crime is often reduced to a he-said-she-said scenario. Consequently,secondary definitions of credibility, ideas of having or deserving credit, come intoplay, and evaluating character becomes crucial. The character of the accused usuallyholds a minor role in assessing the situation. Previous arrests or convictions canweigh heavily. A history of abuse or violence many also tip the scales against theaccused. On the other hand, a respected position in society or a clean record maylead people to doubt the accusation and champion the accused person’s innocence.

The victim’s character, however, is almost always scrutinized. Initially, there arejudgments concerning the circumstances surrounding the crime. Members of societyand even officers of the court may find themselves imposing the moral ought, com-paring the victim’s story to preconceived ideas of how people ought to behave andmentally doling out suitable consequences for rebelling against these traditions.Then the events connected to reporting the crime, such as a time lapse between theattack and the report or the victim’s behavior during the course of the investigation,are analyzed. Finally, the victim’s personal history and reputation are dissected inan effort to determine whether or not the story is credible. Ultimately, many victimsfeel that the outcome rests on people’s willingness or inclination to believe themrather than on a blind administration of justice. See also: Rape Shield Laws.

Suggested Reading: Rudi Williams, “Psychiatrist Discusses Abuse, Harassment, Violenceagainst Military Women,” American Forces Press Service, May 15, 2003, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2003/n05152003_200305154.html.

GREGORY M. DUHL

D

DATE RAPE/ACQUAINTANCE RAPE. Acquaintance rape is most broadly de-fined as any situation in which the requisite elements of the crime of rape aresatisfied (i.e., to force a woman to engage in intercourse against her will and withouther consent) and the victim and the rapist know one another. This prior relationshipbetween the parties—which can range in degree of familiarity from fellow class-mates who have never spoken to one another to a couple involved in a long-termrelationship—is the only difference between acquaintance and stranger rape sce-narios, though the two have been treated quite differently by both the public andthe criminal justice system. Date rape is a subset of acquaintance rape, though thetwo phrases are often used interchangeably, which refers to a rape scenario in whichthere is some sort of romantic relationship between the two parties. Date rape is aparticular problem on college campuses, where it frequently occurs in situationsinvolving alcohol and/or “date rape” drugs. High school students are also at risk,and concerns about teen dating violence are now being addressed in school assem-blies and on Web sites such as VAWnet (http://www.vawnet.org).

Approximately one in four women in the United States will be victims of rapeor attempted rape at some point during their lives. Over three-quarters of thoseassaults will occur between people who know each other. According to a study bythe National Institute of Justice, “criminal reporting by victims of acquaintancerape remains well below the actual incidence of the crime, which appears to behigh” (Epstein and Langenbahn, 65). However, some people have challenged thesefigures. In particular, Katie Roiphe, in The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism,takes issue with the statistic that one in four women will be a victim of rape aswell as the Ms. Magazine study Robin Warshaw’s book I Never Called It Rape isbased upon. Roiphe argues, “If I were really standing in the middle of an epidemic,a crisis, if 25 percent of my female friends were being raped, wouldn’t I know it?”(52).

Yet even if survivors do come forward to report these assaults, an acquaintancerapist is most likely to be charged and tried only when the following additional

DATE RAPE/ACQUAINTANCE RAPE 55

conditions are met: a prompt report to the police, the existence of witnesses whocan testify to similar crimes committed by the suspect, physical injury to the sur-vivor, and corroboration of the individual’s story. This differential treatment ofsurvivors of acquaintance rape, as contrasted with stranger rape, has been docu-mented and corroborated by a number of researchers studying different componentsof the criminal justice system. The thoroughness of a police investigation, the de-cision whether or not to prosecute a charge, the likelihood that the defendant willbe convicted, and the likelihood of incarceration have all been shown to vary sig-nificantly along acquaintance rape/stranger rape lines.

Susan Estrich, a professor at the Law Center of the University of Southern Cal-ifornia, for example, illustrates how the law distinguishes between the “aggravated,jump-from-the-bushes stranger rapes and the simple cases of unarmed rape byfriends, neighbors, and acquaintances” in her groundbreaking book on rape lawReal Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No. As Estrichcompellingly demonstrates, the distinctions drawn by both the public and the crim-inal justice system between acquaintance rape and stranger rape simultaneouslydefine and limit the dimensions of the problem.

If only the aggravated cases are considered rape—if we limit our practical definitionto cases involving more than one man, or strangers, or weapons and beatings—then“rape” is a relatively rare event, is reported to the police more often than most crimes,and is addressed aggressively by the system. If the simple cases are considered—thecases where a woman is forced to have sex without consent by only one man, whomshe knows, who does not beat or attack her with a gun—then rape emerges as a farmore common, vastly underreported, and dramatically ignored problem. (10)

The intersection between these competing dimensions of the problem is where thecurrent debate regarding rape law is being waged.

But the laws themselves are only part of the story. The larger part of the story,particularly with respect to acquaintance rape, is how the police, prosecution, de-fense attorneys, and courts/juries will apply the laws to a particular set of facts. Asboth the National Institute of Justice’s study and the research cited in Cassia Spohnand Julie Horney’s book illustrate, the distinctions drawn between date rape/ac-quaintance rape and stranger rape—which cause one to be taken more seriouslythan the other and therefore prosecuted much more frequently—are made not bythe legislatures’ drafting statutes but by the individuals in the justice system chargedwith interpreting and enforcing them. So until the larger public and individual per-ceptions concerning date and acquaintance rape change, statutory reform can onlygo so far. See also: Campus Rape; Forcible Rape; Fraternities; Sexual Assault.

Suggested Reading: Laurie Bechhofer and Andrea Parrot, eds., Acquaintance Rape: TheHidden Crime (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991); Carol Bohmer, “Acquaintance Rapeand the Law,” in Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime, ed. Andrea Parrot and LaurieBechhofer (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991); Mark Cowling, Date Rape and Consent(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1998); Joel Epstein, and Stacia Langenbahn, “The CriminalJustice and Community Response to Rape,” in Issues and Practices in Criminal Justice(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Instituteof Justice, 1994); Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women WhoSay No (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); Leslie Francis, ed., Date Rape: Fem-inism, Philosophy, and the Law (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996);Katie Roiphe, The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993);Cassia Spohn and Julie Horney, Rape Law Reform: A Grassroots Revolution and Its Impact

56 DATE RAPE DRUGS

(New York: Plenum Press, 1992); Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Reporton Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape (New York: Harperand Row, 1988).

STEPHANIE L. SCHMID

DATE RAPE DRUGS. See listings by drug names.

DESALVO, ALBERT. See Boston Strangler.

DEUTSCH, HELENE (1884–1982). Trained in psychiatry at the University of Vi-enna, Psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch studied psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freudand became a member of his inner circle. She was the head of the Training Instituteof the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society from 1924 to 1935, when she moved to Bos-ton. She is best known for her influential thesis that female psychology is charac-terized by masochism and passivity. This led her to insist that rape fantasies arecommon among women.

Deutsch followed Freud, who had argued that there was an inherent masochistictrend in femininity. Like Freud, Deutsch traced this to anatomy: When little girlsrealize that they do not have a penis, their active stance toward the world turnsinward. Mature female sexuality is, in this formulation, vaginal only; Deutsch sawthis as passive and represents the sexual act as one that is, at least initially, un-pleasant for women. Menstruation and childbirth are also female experiences thatDeutsch associated with pain and suffering. She concluded that normal womanhoodrequires the capacity to take pleasure in pain.

For Deutsch, women’s rape fantasies can express fears about sexuality, but theyare often erotic. She noted that because they represent real female sexuality, “rapefantasies often have such irresistible verisimilitude that even the most experiencedjudges are misled in trials of innocent men accused of rape” (Psychology of Women,256).

Her theories influenced popular understandings of rape. They were disputed byher contemporary Karen Horney, who argued that masochism in women be un-derstood culturally and not simply in terms of anatomy. Later feminists, for in-stance, Susan Brownmiller (1975), who called Deutsch “a traitor to her sex,” havecriticized Deutsch’s theory for contributing to myths about women and rape. Seealso: Against Our Will.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Helene Deutsch, Psychology of Women, 2 vols. (NewYork: Grune and Stratton, 1944–1945); Helene Deutsch, “The Significance of Masochismin the Mental Life of Women” (1930), in The Psychoanalytic Reader, ed. R. Fliess (NewYork: International Universities Press, 1969).

SARA MURPHY

DISABLED VICTIMS. See Victims.

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER (DID). Previously known as multiplepersonality disorder, dissociative identity disorder (DID) develops in response to anextreme trauma such as rape. To survive the abuse, people disconnect their minds

DNA COLLECTION AND EVIDENCE 57

from what is done to them. Approximately 1 in 100 people have some form ofDID, but the disorder is not yet well understood.

DID is now considered to be a fairly common reaction to repeated physical,emotional, or sexual abuse in childhood. Victims of long term incest, for example,frequently develop DID as a survival technique. Over time, it may prove so effectivethat a victim may use it to “escape” any threatening situation. In addition, whenthose with DID experience a situation that reminds them in some way of theirprevious abuse and trauma, it may trigger a reaction of some sort, such as flash-backs, panic attacks, or self-destructive behavior.

Everybody has different aspects to their personality, but in DID this takes anextreme manifestation. The boundaries between personality parts are very rigid,and the personalities are very distinct. Often, a child personality carries the secretof rape. To be diagnosed with DID, a person must have two or more distinctpersonalities who can control behavior. These personality states cannot be due toa medical condition or inebriation, and they must leave the individual unable torecall important personal information. Indeed, the DID sufferer may lose track oftime and forget what happened while dissociating. While this “splitting” into “al-ters” is vital in surviving the initial trauma, when it begins to interfere with dailylife, therapy is helpful.

Therapy is long term, and its goal is to help the client function effectively in thehere and now, while dealing with a painful past. The client chooses between twoequally viable treatment options. One fuses the alters so they cease to exist asseparate parts; the other creates “co-consciousness” where each part works inawareness and cooperation with the other. Medication will not cure DID, but itcan work with therapy in helping clients manage other conditions that can afflictthose with DID: night frights, hearing voices, panic attacks, depression, eating dis-orders, chemical dependence, body memories, or severe headaches. See also: Incest;Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Suggested Reading: Deborah Bray Haddock, Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook(Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2001).

MARY LINEHAN

DNA COLLECTION AND EVIDENCE. DNA evidence is a type of physical, sci-entific evidence used in investigating, solving, and prosecuting criminal cases, in-cluding cases of rape. When law enforcement agencies and attorneys properly utilizeDNA evidence, it is like a “silent witness” that helps to identify or eliminate certainsuspects. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a string of coded genetic informationfound in cell nuclei, which determines individual hereditary characteristics. It is likea genetic blueprint and is identical in every cell of an individual. The use of DNAevidence in criminal investigations and prosecutions centers on the theory that notwo human beings, except for identical twins, have exactly the same DNA, althoughthis theory has not yet been absolutely proven. DNA evidence falls into the categoryof class characteristic evidence because it cannot be forensically identified with aspecific individual to the exclusion of all others. DNA reports and the resultingcourt testimony can only give the probability of finding two people with the sameDNA pattern in the random population, a probability that can be extremely highor low, based on the frequency of that particular DNA pattern. The types of phys-

58 DNA COLLECTION AND EVIDENCE

ical evidence useful in providing DNA samples are among the most commonlyfound and the most crucial in the majority of sexual assault investigations.

Nobel Prize–winning scientists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered thestructure of DNA in the 1950s. Since its beginning, DNA analysis has had a majorimpact on the conduct of criminal investigations and litigations. Many sexual as-sault cases lack identifying evidence like latent fingerprints but often contain traceevidence like semen, hair, blood, and other class characteristic evidence from whichscientists can extract DNA. This evidence is one of the primary targets of evidencecollection in rape cases. DNA evidence is also valuable because it is less likely tobe detected and destroyed by the perpetrator than fingerprints, which are easilyeliminated through the use of gloves or careful wiping of surfaces at the crime scene.DNA is also invaluable to criminal investigators because of its durability. Research-ers have extracted DNA from the bones of long-dead individuals to help solve oldcriminal cases. DNA analysis will become ever more valuable in the future as sci-entific advances promise to someday allow scientists to match DNA evidence to asingle individual with absolute certainty.

The primary sources of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases are the victim, thecrime scene, and any known suspects. In order for DNA evidence to be useful,investigators need both a DNA sample recovered from the victim or the crime sceneand a DNA sample from the suspected perpetrator of the crime. Without bothsamples, an investigator cannot determine a particular individual’s likelihood orelimination as a suspect. Although medical examination of the rape victim is ofprimary importance, investigators should not neglect the possibility of DNA evi-dence recovery at the crime scene as well. Responding officers and investigatorsmust properly recognize and collect potential evidence at the scene in order for aforensic laboratory to be able to extract and analyze any available DNA.

In rape cases, investigators should consider the victim the focal point of the crimeand of the search for evidence. The medical personnel who treat rape victims caneither greatly facilitate or impair the courtroom use of evidence. Direct involvementof police personnel in medical evidence recovery depends on location, funding, per-sonnel availability, and training. Police presence during the medical treatment ofrape victims can greatly aid in questions of evidence chain of custody and integritythat may be required for trial testimony, but their presence is a highly controversialissue due to questions of sensitivity toward the victim. Medical personnel or lawenforcement investigators should also conduct an evidence search involving anypotential suspects as soon as possible in order to avoid loss or destruction of evi-dence. Suspects will also need to provide known DNA samples for comparison toDNA recovered from the crime scene.

The use of preassembled sexual assault evidence collection kits, often called rapekits, has become increasingly popular. These kits provide for the systematic collec-tion and documentation of physical evidence, including DNA evidence, that cancorroborate sexual activity and associate the suspect with the victim. Different kitsuse different evidence recovery methods and procedures, depending on the age andsex of the person or whether that person is the victim or the suspect. Most kits aredesigned for use with a female victim and a male suspect. The types of evidencecollected include clothing, body hair, body fluids, fingernail scrapings, and debriscollection. The kits also ensure that medical personnel collect physical evidence inkeeping with proper medical, forensic, and legal requirements. Their development

DNA COLLECTION AND EVIDENCE 59

and use is one benefit of planning and liaison between law enforcement and themedical community.

The relevance and admissibility of physical evidence depend on its recognition,utilization, collection, packaging, and preservation. Successful use of DNA evidencerequires proper technique, administration, organization, attitude, and funding. Theentire process of handling evidence materials from the start of the crime scene toits presentation in court must be efficient, uncontaminated, and well documented.The protection of possible evidence should begin immediately after the victim con-tacts a law enforcement agency to report the rape. Evidence integrity can be affectedby anyone coming in physical contact with the evidence, including the victim, re-sponding officers, investigators, crime scene technicians, medical personnel, forensiclaboratory examiners, and attorneys. The consequences of DNA evidence contam-ination may include the introduction of misleading evidence, confusion, and seriousquestions as to the evidence’s effectiveness. Contamination can also impair DNAevidence to the point that prosecution or exoneration of a particular suspect is nolonger possible.

The process of DNA analysis begins when evidence reaches the laboratory. Ad-equate funding is essential due to the expense of completing the analysis. Many lawenforcement agencies throughout the country have a backlog of rape kits that havenot been analyzed due to lack of funds. DNA analysis can be completed on hairroot cells, blood, and semen. Urine, perspiration, seminal fluid, and saliva do notcontain DNA, but DNA can be extracted from seminal fluid and saliva if certaintypes of cells are present. The two most common methods of analysis are designatedrestriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and polymerase chain reaction(PCR). Both of these processes were developed by a team of genetics researchersled by Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of genetic fingerprinting, at the Lister Institute ofthe University of Leicester in England in 1984. PCR analysis is particularly bene-ficial because it can be completed with more minute quantities of DNA and withbody fluid samples that have degraded.

After scientists analyze the DNA, they create an image of the DNA fragment thatresembles a supermarket bar code. This image is then compared with a similarimage created from DNA samples taken from a known suspect. If the samples donot match, the known suspect is eliminated. If the samples match, the scientist willthen determine the probability that the suspect’s DNA pattern could have randomlymatched the DNA pattern recovered from the crime. Scientists determine probabil-ity by comparing the DNA pattern with those patterns stored in computer databasesaround the world. The probability of such a match will vary depending on therarity or commonality of the found DNA fragments. The lower the probability ofa random match, the more likely it is that the suspect committed the crime.

Since DNA evidence cannot link a suspect to a crime with absolute certainty,courts will only allow expert testimony concerning the probability of a randommatch. DNA evidence can support or contradict the testimony of participants orwitnesses and can greatly increase the chances for prosecution or exoneration, butonly if such evidence is uncontaminated and clearly understood. DNA evidence isalso useful in disproving false confessions and in linking serial rapes to a singleperpetrator. In a few cases, scientists have even used DNA evidence from a victim’sparents and from blood recovered at the crime scene to prove the victim’s murderwhen her body was unable to be recovered. Advances in DNA technology providegreater forensic insight but also provide greater challenges for its use in prosecution

60 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

as it becomes harder for the layperson to understand. Attorneys must present DNAevidence and explain its purpose in a clear manner. Any weaknesses or problemsin evidence collection or analysis will allow opposing attorneys to challenge itsadmissibility and reliability. The use of DNA evidence in the courtroom will becomeincreasingly prevalent as DNA analysis becomes more sophisticated, especiallywhen scientists are able to conclusively link DNA samples to a single individual.See also: Physicians/Medical Professionals; Profiling.

Suggested Reading: Colin Evans, The Casebook of Forensic Detection (New York: JohnWiley and Sons, 1996); Robert R. Hazelwood and Ann Wolbert Burgess, Practical Aspectsof Rape Investigation: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1995);F.E. Inbau and A.A. Moenssens, Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases (Mineola, NY: Foun-dation Press, 1978); David Owen, Hidden Evidence: Forty True Crimes and How ForensicScience Helped Solve Them (Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 2000).

MARCELLA TREVINO

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. The American Psychological Association (APA) presentsdomestic violence as a pattern of abusive behaviors including a wide range of phys-ical, sexual, and psychological maltreatment used by one family member againstanother, often to maintain that person’s misuse of power, control, and authority.Domestic violence include abuse between members of a family who are not intimate,such as elder abuse, abuse of and by children, and abuse between other familymembers such as siblings, cousins, or in-laws. Abuse shows patterns of intercon-nection, with men who batter partners often abusing children as well (APA). Do-mestic violence applies to homosexual as well as heterosexual relationships, and toviolence from females as well as from males, although the latter is more common.

Domestic violence may be criminal and includes physical assault (use of aweapon, hitting, shoving, etc.), sexual abuse (unwanted sexual activity, includingrape), stalking, and terroristic threats. Other forms of domestic violence are notusually considered criminal but are still abusive. These include emotional control,such as continual insults and derogatory name-calling, and intimidation, such aspreventing the person from contacting friends or family or from taking a job. Do-mestic violence can involve depriving a person of financial resources and deprivinga person of rights, such as physical freedom or medical care. It can include threats,such as the threat of deportation.

According to the National Violence against Women Survey (Tjaden and Thoen-nes), 1 out of 4 U.S. women has been raped or physically assaulted by an intimatepartner, while 1 out of 14 U.S. men report rape or physical assault. The AmericanPsychological Association estimates that the lifetime prevalence of physical assaulttoward women in an intimate relationship is one in three. If other forms of domesticviolence such as emotional abuse were to be included, the estimated rates of oc-currence would be much higher.

Female victims of domestic violence, as compared to male victims, are more likelyto need medical attention and to spend more days in bed (National Research Coun-cil). Differences between racial and ethnic groups in experience of domestic violencehave been reported, but these differences are hard to interpret because of differencesin willingness to report and because differences in educational and economic statusare often not reported. There are indications that more educated abusive men, whencompared with less educated abusive men, are more likely to use verbal and emo-tional abuse rather than physical abuse.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 61

Consequences of domestic violence include physical injury, illness, and death. Ithas been estimated that 30 to 40 percent of women seen in U.S. hospital emergencyrooms have symptoms that are related to domestic violence. In addition, victimsshow emotional consequences, which can include posttraumatic stress disorder, de-pression, anxiety disorders, and other disorders. The financial costs in medical andlost labor costs is staggering; direct medical costs alone have been estimated at $1.8billion each year (Wisner et al.). There are also consequences for children whoobserve domestic violence; witnessing violence is a risk factor for children’s long-term physical and mental health problems, including substance abuse; for theirbeing victims of abuse; and for their own later perpetrating domestic violence.

Victims of domestic violence do not show consistent personality factors. The onlyconsistent risk factor is being a woman. Women may stay in violent relationshipsfor a variety of reasons, including fear of retribution to themselves and their chil-dren, financial need, and because of the cycle of violence in which some abusivemen become loving and vow change after the abuse.

Alcohol use has been frequently associated with domestic violence, but perpetra-tors of domestic violence do not form a cohesive group. Studies suggest a typologyof abusers. A small group of abusers have antisocial attitudes and exhibit violencein many situations; another group shows psychopathology involving dysphoria orborderline psychological problems and high levels of violence toward their partners;a third shows less psychopathology, violence only within the family, and culturaland educational factors are likely to play a role in their acceptance of violence asappropriate.

Programs to prevent domestic violence focus on educational outreach: to victims;to children through programs in the schools about communication and expressionof anger; and to professionals such as legislators, physicians, mental health person-nel, police, and judges. Programs provide shelter and treatment programs forwomen, including homeless women and women from varied cultural backgrounds.Treatment programs for men can be psychoeducational, such as the Duluth model,or psychotherapeutic, or some combination of the two. Many programs also pro-vide a focus on substance abuse. See also: Battered Women; Incest.

Suggested Reading: American Psychological Association, Violence and the Family: Reportof the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Fam-ily (Washington, DC: Author, 1996); V. Felitti, R. Anda, D. Nordenberg, D. Williamson,A. Spitz, and V. Edwards, “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunctionto Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults,” American Journal of Preventive Med-icine 14.4 (1998): 245–258; A. Holtzworth-Munroe and G.L. Stuart, “Typologies of MaleBatterers: Three Subtypes and the Differences between Them,” Psychological Bulletin 116.3(1994): 476–497; G.T. Hotaling and D.B. Sugarman, “A Risk Marker Analysis of AssaultedWives,” Journal of Family Violence 5.1 (1990): 1–13; National Research Council, Under-standing Violence against Women (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996);P. Tjaden and N. Thoennes, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences ofIntimate Partner Violence against Women: Findings from the National Violence againstWomen Survey, report for grant 93-IJ-CX-0012, funded by the National Institute of Justiceand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Washington, DC: NIJ, 2000); L. Wal-ker, The Abused Woman: A Survivor Therapy Approach (Washington, DC: American Psy-chological Association, 1994); C.L. Wisner, T.P. Gilmer, L.E. Saltzman, and T.M. Zink,“Intimate Partner Violence against Women: Do Victims Cost Health Plans More?” Journalof Family Practice 48.6 (1999): 439–443.

MARGARET GIBBS

62 DOUBLE STANDARD

DOUBLE STANDARD. See Sexual Double Standard.

DROIT DU SEIGNEUR. The droit du seigneur—also referred to as droit de cuissage,marquette, or jus primae noctis—refers to the right of an aristocratic lord to haveforced sexual relations with a woman living on his domain during the first nightof her marriage. Rather than allow sexual relations with his new bride, the groomwould offer his lord a gift. Historians have generally agreed that this “right” wasmerely legend and probably never existed in practice. Early modern chroniclersascribe the origins of the practice to pagan lords who required a marriage paymentfrom their dependents. But the term itself, far from originating in the Middle Ages,only emerged in sixteenth-century juridical debates concerning relations betweenlords and peasants in rural European society.

The term remains nonetheless powerful. The droit du seigneur symbolizes sexualdependence between a male master and female servant. It concerns sexual power,which itself signifies social and political dominance. If the droit du seigneur has hadany resonance in popular culture, it most likely derives from its use in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century literature, where the lord’s first night is mentioned in writ-ings of famous eighteenth-century authors such as Voltaire or in Pierre AugustinCaron de Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro (1784). In these works, themaster-servant sexual theme provides an avenue for social criticism of the inegali-tarian society of the period.

The term droit de cuissage (along with harcelement sexuel) has returned to themodern French lexicon amid government legislation against sexual harassment inthe workplace.

Suggested Reading: Alain Boureau, The Lord’s First Night: The Myth of the Droit deCuissage, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); FrancesEleanor Palermo Litvack, Le Droit du Seigneur in European and American Literature (Bir-mingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1984).

CHRISTOPHER CORLEY

DRUG-INDUCED RAPE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT ACT OF 1996.The Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act criminalized the intent tocommit a violent crime (including rape), wherein the perpetrator provides a con-trolled substance to an unsuspecting victim. While distributing controlled sub-stances was already a federal crime (Controlled Substances Act), this legislationtargets the problem of date rape drugs. Flunitrazepam is named in the act, as theeffects of this drug cause unknowing victims to become so submissive that they arean easy target of a rapist. Those convicted of distributing even a single dose facesentences of up to 20 years in prison, and the penalties for possession include bothfines and 3 years’ imprisonment.

Flunitrazepam, with a brand name Rohypnol, is commonly called Roofie, Mex-ican Valium, and R-2. A benzodiazepine (tranquilizer), with up to 10 times thestrength of Valium, Rohypnol is a quick-acting sedative, marketed in many coun-tries as a remedy for insomnia and as a preanesthetic. Rohypnol is not approvedfor either medical or therapeutic use in the United States, and possession, distri-bution, and manufacture of the drug are illegal. At the time of the enactment ofthe legislation, this low-cost sedative quickly dissolved in liquid without any trace

DWORKIN, ANDREA 63

of taste, color, or odor. It chemically induces drowsiness, confusion, and amnesia,renders the user unconscious, impairs judgment, and when mixed with alcohol, ispotentially lethal. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raised specific con-cerns about the impairment of mental judgment and anterograde amnesia, wherebythe user forgets all events while under the influence of the drug. Many victims ofRohypnol-facilitated rape do not realize that they have been assaulted until theyare beyond the 60-hour maximum time wherein the ingested drug can be detectedin the human body.

The DEA and legislators were concerned about the growing use of date rapedrugs, such as Rohypnol and gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB), as the pattern ofillegal drug use changed in the 1990s. Frequently associated with Rave parties, theuse of these inexpensive drugs, along with MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymetham-phetamine, street name Ecstasy), grew in popularity. Since the enactment of thislegislation, manufacturer Hoffman-LaRoche reformulated Rohypnol so that it takesmuch longer to dissolve and changes the color of the liquid to blue. However, evenwith these changes to the chemical properties of the drug, the medical and legalprofession caution that newer illicit date rape drugs continue to be stealth in theirdetection, and are formulated to be even more efficient and quick-acting. See also:Sexual Assault, Drug-Facilitated.

Suggested Reading: Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act of 1996, 21 U.S.C.,sec. 841 (b)(7); Office of the Attorney General, “Memorandum for All United States Attor-neys—Drug-Induced Violent Crime Prosecutions,” September 23, 1997, http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/readingroom/drugcrime.htm; U.S.A. Drug Enforcement Administration, “DEA Briefs& Background, Drugs and Drug Abuse—Drug Descriptions, Rohypnol (Flunitrazepam),”http://www.dea.gov/concern/flunitrazepamp.html.

LAURIE JACKLIN

DWORKIN, ANDREA (1946– ). Prominent feminist scholar, writer, and activist.While participating in an antiwar protest in New York in 1965, Dworkin wasarrested and spent four days in the Manhattan Women’s House of Detention, whereshe was strip-searched and sexually brutalized by male doctors. Later, as a youngmarried woman living in Amsterdam, Dworkin was threatened, physically beaten,and terrorized by her husband. That experience inspired Dworkin to devote herselfto ending oppression against women. Dworkin explains that her book WomanHating (1974) was written because “I wanted to find out what had happened tome and why. I knew only that it was impersonal.” In that book, Dworkin firstadvanced the theory that “[w]e are, clearly, a multisexed species which has itssexuality spread along a vast fluid continuum where the elements called male andfemale are not discrete.” After escaping from her abusive husband, Dworkin re-turned to the United States and began a career as a scholar, writer, and activist.Her book Intercourse (1977) examined the way in which sexuality is constructedas domination. The so-called dominance theory of Dworkin, along with scholarCatherine MacKinnon, was the foundation for model antipornography ordinancesthat they drafted for Minneapolis and Indianapolis. Those ordinances sought tolink pornography to tangible harm to women, thereby giving rise to a legal claimthat their civil rights had been violated. Dworkin’s work is provocative and oftencontroversial. Her critics claim that she is antimale and antisex. Dworkin is a pro-lific writer, the author of numerous essays and articles as well as several books of

64 DWORKIN, ANDREA

nonfiction and fiction, including Right Wing Women (1983); Ice and Fire (1987);Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1989); Mercy (1992); Scapegoat: The Jews,Israel, and Women’s Liberation (2000); Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of aFeminist Militant (2002). See also: Prostitution; Roiphe, Katie; Steinem, Gloria.

Suggested Reading: Martha Camallas, Introduction to Feminist Legal Theory (New York:Aspen Publishers, 1999); Andrea Dworkin Web site: http://www.igc.org/Womensnet/dworkin.

BRIDGET J. CRAWFORD

E

ECSTASY. 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), or Ecstasy, is themost widely recognized name for a popular “club drug.” Pharmaceutically, Ecstasyis a synthetic drug that is similar in action to amphetamines (categorized as stim-ulants) and to mescaline (a hallucinogen). Consequently, it produces both stimulantand psychedelic symptoms. Hence, the sale of brightly lighted ornaments at“Raves.” Ecstasy appears to be an addictive substance producing many of the prob-lems usually encountered with cocaine. While Ecstasy is not considered to be a“hard drug” by most of its youthful users, a number of researchers think that it isactually more dangerous than either heroin or cocaine.

While Ecstasy is generally ingested orally in the form of tablets or capsules, someusers crush the pills into a powder that can be snorted, smoked, or injected. Sincethe amount of MDMA differs with each pill, it is difficult for the user to know justhow much is being consumed at any one time. The combined stimulant and psy-chedelic effects reach a peak after approximately two hours but may continue togenerate symptoms for as long as six hours or even longer. At one time, MDMAwas utilized as an appetite suppressant in weight control. It was also prescribed asa medication to enhance close interpersonal relationships that were suffering fromdifficulties in establishing intimacy. It is this special quality of Ecstasy that is as-sociated with inappropriate sexual contact and date rape.

The pleasurable effects of taking Ecstasy include increased self-confidence and afeeling of acceptance and closeness to others. The user has a strong desire to touchand be touched by others, even by complete strangers. It is easy to comprehend thepopularity of Ecstasy with youth, especially at parties, nightclubs, and Raves. More-over, a predator in date rape situations doesn’t have to use a drug such as Rohypnolto render the victim unconscious; he or she only has to wait until the victim makesthe first overture. Ecstasy facilitates sexual contact that might otherwise seem highrisk.

The direct effects of taking Ecstasy include an increase in heart rate and thedevelopment of hypertension (high blood pressure), a heightened sense of energy

66 EJACULATION

and alertness (often associated with amphetamines), as well as lowered appetite.While the energizing effect enables the user to dance for hours, it can also result inmalignant hyperthermia (extremely high body temperature) and dehydration (thus,the need for water). Eventually, the heart and kidneys are strained to the point offailure. Typical responses to Ecstasy also include a sense of euphoria, musclespasms, jaw clenching, and tremors. Infant pacifiers are used to reduce the pressureon the teeth. When Ecstasy is combined with alcohol, the adverse effects are evenmore devastating than when Ecstasy is used alone. Chronic and heavy use of Ecstasycan lead to the development of sleep disorders, confusion, memory loss, attentiondeficits, chronically elevated levels of anxiety, and aggressive and impulsive behav-ior. Clearly, critical thinking processes and judgment are impaired. Serotonin de-pletion (reduction of an essential neurotransmitter) can account for long-termbehavioral changes. See also: Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB); Ketamine; SexualAssault, Drug-Facilitated.

Suggested Reading: Club Drugs.org, http://www.clubdrugs.org; Ronald Hitzler, “Pill Kick:The Pursuit of ‘Ecstasy’ at Techno-events,” Journal of Drug Issues 32 (2002): 459–466;Susan J. Landers, “Club Drugs More Agony Than Ecstasy for Young People,” AmericanMedical News 44 (2001): 39–42; Partnership for a Drug-Free America, http://www.drugfreeamerica.org; Dori Rogers, “Ecstasy Overdose,” Nursing 32 (2002): 112–117; Sub-stance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Clearinghouse on Al-cohol and Drug Information, http://www.health.org; Brian Vastag, “Ecstasy Experts WantRealistic Messages,” Journal of the American Medical Association 286 (2001): 777–780.

JUDITH A. WATERS AND SHARON A. DROZDOWSKI

EJACULATION. Technically, ejaculation in males is the expulsion of seminal fluidout of the urethra during sexual climax. It is a rather complex process requiringthe coordination of glands and muscles with activation from the brain and spinalchord. Orgasm occurs in two stages. Immediately prior to ejaculation, the variouscomponents of semen are expelled from the seminal vesicles and prostate into theposterior urethra near the prostate. As the seminal fluids collect, the urethra ex-pands, and males have a feeling they are about to ejaculate; some do have prematureejaculation at this time, but the semen is not yet present in the urethra.

The second stage, ejaculation, involves two sphincters. The urethral sphincterbetween the urethra and the bladder contracts to seal off entrance to the bladder,keeping urine from mixing with semen and preventing semen from flowing into thebladder. The external sphincter relaxes, permitting the semen to be propelled bythe contraction of smooth muscles in the urethra and of striated muscles in thepelvic floor with the other seminal fluids through the urethral opening in the penisin a series of four or five spurts, at intervals of eight-tenths of a second, withdecreasing force. If the ejaculation takes place into free space, it might be propelledhalf a yard or so from the body.

This is then followed in males by a refractory period, during which for mostmales further erotic stimulation provokes no response. The length of this periodvaries according to the individual, usually between 30 and 90 minutes, but a smallminority can have multiple orgasms since they do not experience the typical re-fractory period.

Some females also ejaculate, although there is considerable debate among expertsover the extent and what constitutes the ejaculate. As with males the ejaculate is

ETHNIC CLEANSING 67

discharged from the urethra, sometimes with sufficient force to propel it away fromthe human body. There seem to be two kinds. One, a low-volume opalescent fluid(about a teaspoon), appears to be a secretion from the paraurethral or Skene’sglands, homologous to the male prostate, and has prostatic acid phosphatase, achemical believed previously to be secreted only by the male prostate gland. Thehigh-volume secretion is more controversial and seems more likely to be urine.Regardless of what it might be, some studies have shown that as many as 40 percentof females report experiencing such ejaculation. Females do not experience the re-fractory period that males do.

In cases of rape, semen collected from the female’s vagina or the anus of eithersex can be analyzed for DNA and help in apprehension of the criminal. For thisreason, some rapists are now using condoms to prevent analysis. See also: DNACollection and Evidence.

Suggested Reading: F. Addiego, E. Belzer, J. Comoli, W. Moger, J. Perry, and B. Whipple,“Female Ejaculation: A Case Study,” Journal of Sex Research 17 (1981): 13–21; E. Belzer,B. Whipple, and W. Moger, “A Female Ejaculation,” Journal of Sex Research 20 (1984):403–406; A.K. Ladas, B. Whipple, and J.D. Perry, The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveriesabout Human Sexuality (New York: Rinehart & Winston, 1982); William H. Masters andVirginia Johnson, Human Sexual Response (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966).

VERN L. BULLOUGH

ELDERLY VICTIMS. See Victims.

ESTRICH, SUSAN. See Real Rape.

ETHNIC CLEANSING. Although the practice is centuries old, ethnic cleansing asa phenomenon came into its own during the waning years of the twentieth century.The term ethnic cleansing is a literal translation of the Serbo-Croatian term etnickociscenje and has become synonymous with the term genocide. Ethnic cleansing isdefined as when one ethnic group expels members of other ethnic groups from ageographic area in order to create ethnically pure enclaves for members of theirethnic group. During this involuntary displacement of people groups, often themembers of the displaced group are savagely raped and tortured in a systematicfashion.

If there was an archetypal model for ethnic cleansing, then it would stem fromthe example of the Nazi experience during the Third Reich. In an effort to createLebensraum, or “living space,” Adolf Hitler began an expansionist drive to createa greater Germany during his reign of terror. Based on a platform of racial supe-riority, Hitler promoted the notion of the German people as the embodiment of theAryan race. As such, he allowed Dr. Josef Mengele to conduct eugenics experimentson those he deemed racially inferior. During the eugenics experiments, Germanofficers would forceably rape young women in order to breed a new super race.Countless women were used as breeding tools for the Third Reich, in addition toenduring the horrors of the concentration camps before the implementation of Hit-ler’s “Final Solution” in which Hitler would authorize the extermination of 6 mil-lion Jews. The end of World War II saw the end of the Nazi eugenics experiments,but not of the ideas of ethnic cleansing.

68 EVIDENCE

The geopolitical landscape saw dramatic changes in the 50 years following WorldWar II. During the Cold War, ethnic tensions that had been fueled by centuries ofturmoil were quelled under the boots of dictators. One such dictator was MarshallJosip Broz Tito, who held Yugoslavia’s ethnically diverse communities togetherunder an iron fist. After his death and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union,Slobodan Milosevic emerged as the president of Serbia. Under Milosevic’s reign,Serbia began a campaign for expansion into the region of the former Yugoslaviaknown as Kosovo. Like their counterparts in the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis,Serbian forces marched across the former Yugoslavia washed in the blood of deadMuslims and Albanians. Milosevic’s forces ordered one of the bloodiest massacresof civilians in Srebrenica, which left over 7,000 dead and countless others victimsof rape and torture. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and UNpeacekeepers ended the violence and created the International Criminal Tribunalfor the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to prosecute members of the Serbian forces whoengaged in rape, genocide and other war crimes. As of March 2004, Milosevic wasamong those facing the tribunal. See also: Bosnia-Herzegovina; Nazis.

Suggested Reading: Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo, report released by theU.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, May 1999, http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_9905_ethnic_ksvo_toc.html; International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugo-slavia Web site, http://www.un.org/icty/; Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, Amer-ican Racism, and German National Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);Drazen Petrovic, “Ethnic Cleansing—An Attempt at Methodology,” European Journal ofInternational Law 5.3 (1994), http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art3.html.

OJAN ARYANFARD

EVIDENCE. See DNA Collection and Evidence; Rules of Evidence.

F

FAIRY TALES. Children receive early lessons on gender roles through reading andlistening to fairy tales. The cultural construction of gender, as seen through Westernfairy tales, emphasizes female obedience and passivity. When characters deviatefrom these ideals, they invariably receive some sort of punishment. On the surface,these stories appear to simply reflect the perceived gender roles of earlier centuries;however, the tales have a deeper meaning when examined through the lens of sex-uality. In this context, fairy tales indicate acceptance of male sexual aggression,including rape, and place the burden of chastity solely on women.

Although modern-day readers usually think of fairy tales as stories designed forchildren, the original versions of such tales as Little Red Riding Hood were writtento amuse adults and instruct those approaching adulthood. Charles Perrault’s Talesof Times Past with Morals (1697) includes such stories as Little Red Riding Hood,Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Tom Thumb. These tales are filled with allusionsto life in the court of Louis XIV, and they are told in the style that was fashionablein the popular salons of the time. Educated readers then would have understoodthe story of Little Red Riding Hood, for example, to be a sexual parable warningyoung women to guard their virtue—vitally important during this time because aprospective bride’s bad sexual reputation could jettison the plans for a wedding.Since fortunes were made and status acquired through marriages arranged by par-ents, a young woman had to remain chaste, even when a charming “wolf” sweet-talked her. In Perrault’s version of the story, the pretty young woman with the redhood undresses and gets into bed with the wolf who is disguised as her grand-mother. The wolf, who has already eaten the grandmother, climbs on top of LittleRed Riding Hood and eats her, too. It has been noted that when a young womanlost her virginity, the popular slang phrase of the time was “She’d seen the wolf.”Thus, Perrault made the point that young women must guard and protect theirchastity very clear to his readers. In case the message still was not clear, an illus-tration showed the wolf climbing on top of a young woman—not a child—who isin a bed and who is reaching up to touch his snout.

70 FAMILY

By the nineteenth century when the Brothers Grimm published their adaptationof the story, Little Red Riding Hood had become a willfully disobedient child whoignored her mother’s instructions and gave in to her desire to explore the woods.Again, the wolf eats the girl, but this time she bears even more responsibility forher “rape” because she disobeyed her mother’s orders to stay on the path. Thetransformation of Red Riding Hood from a naive girl to a disobedient child gov-erned by passions is indicative of changes in perceptions of gender that occurredduring the nineteenth century. Fairy tales of the nineteenth century emphasize theneed for order and for strong morals; as middle-class women spent more timeunsupervised in public spaces, authors felt the need to inculcate the values of obe-dience and chastity, lest women fall prey to “wolves” in the guise of men.

Perrault would not have considered Little Red Riding Hood to be a story of rapebecause at the time his book was published, rape was not a crime against thewoman who was raped but rather a crime against her father. In both the Perraultand the Grimm Brothers versions, however, Little Red Riding Hood did not con-form to appropriate female standards. Therefore, she was responsible for whathappened to her. In this way, it is similar to still widely held rape myths in whichwomen who talk to strangers or who go out alone and unprotected are often saidto be “asking for it.”

As well as promoting the concept that women should be obedient and take re-sponsibility for keeping their virtue intact, the most popular Western fairy talesportray ideal women as beautiful and completely passive—and in need of men torescue them. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White both sleep until their princes awakenthem. Cinderella is treated like a slave by her stepmother until she meets her prince.These fairy tales, and others like them, have entrenched in the cultural consciousnessa patriarchal perspective on female sexuality and the dangers of female autonomy.Acceptance of male dominance and fear of female sexuality pervade the tales andperpetuate the notion that female sexuality must be guarded or else violence andchaos will ensue. However, fairy tales are changeable and adapt to the times andcultures in which they are being told. Contemporary versions of fairy tales includestrong heroines who are capable of saving themselves, sexy women who want toattract wolves, and even stars of pornographic films. See also: Literature, Worldand American; Mythology.

Suggested Reading: Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality,and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (New York: Basic Books, 2002); Jack Zipes, The Trialsand Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1983).

CATHERINE MAYBREY AND MERRIL D. SMITH

FAMILY. The family of a rape survivor, friends, and coworkers are often referredto as co-survivors because they themselves are affected and not infrequently deeplytraumatized by a sexual assault. But despite the shock the family inevitably expe-riences, they should bear in mind that they constitute an essential factor in therecovery process, and they are invested with a role and power to help the rapevictim overcome the trauma. Being aware of the role of the family in supporting arape victim is all the more important in light of what rape statistics seem to indi-cate—everybody should be prepared to face, at some point, the need to show com-

FANTASIES 71

passion and offer help to a rape victim, whether a family member, friend, or acolleague.

Rape victims are driven by a diffident hope of understanding, and the decisionto turn for support in such a critical situation is painful enough in itself. This makesthe victim especially vulnerable, and family members to whom a rape survivorreaches out for help are entrusted with a responsibility to offer compassion, ratherthan succumbing to myths about the victim’s behavior and blaming her for theincident. Victimizing a survivor further is not only downright irrational, but it cru-elly aggravates an already dramatic situation and intensifies the victim’s sense ofhelplessness. Moreover, offering support is more than a merely tacit responsibilityof a healthy and loving family. This expectation, at least with regard to children,is addressed by documents issued during international conferences on populationand development, which shape UN policies. The Cairo �5 Conference declaration(1999) comprehensively underscores “the central role of families . . . in educatingtheir children and shaping their attitudes . . . to enable them to make responsibleand informed choices and decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive healthneeds.”

The powers of kinship make family members capable of significantly relievingthe victim in a number of ways, and some approaches that the family is recom-mended to take in crisis situations are uncontroversial and undoubtedly beneficialfor both the victim and co-victims. Being concerned listeners and allowing the victimto share the grief makes it possible to break the barriers of isolation and helplessnessthat haunt the victim after an assault. This, in turn, is an important step towardovercoming the devastating fear of the perpetrator that persists as a result of theviolence or the threat of violence used in a rape. As some experts point out, to helpa victim cope with fear, the family should emphasize and be grateful for the veryfact that a raped person survived the assault, because it is a sign of the victim’sbrave and sensible behavior. Finally, on the formal level, the family proves an in-valuable support in court when the victim decides to press charges.

Family can also be the environment responsible for sexual assaults. But becausespouses accused of marital rape claim the intercourse in question was consensual,it is hard to obtain reliable statistics on rape within the family. Spousal rape is notany less grave than sexual assaults on nonrelatives. An especially serious offensewithin the family is sex forced on children—in addition to sexual assaults by parentsor siblings being prohibited by law as incestuous, they have a traumatic effect onthe child’s psyche. See also: Incest; Stigma.

Suggested Reading: Key Actions for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Ac-tion of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo �5) (1999),http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/cn9/1999/ecn91999pc-crp/rev1.pdf; R. Levine, WhenYou Are the Partner of a Rape or Incest Survivor: A Workbook for You (San Jose, CA:Resource Publications, 1996); Alan W. McEvoy and Jeff B. Brookings, If She Is Raped: AGuidebook for Husbands, Fathers, and Male Friends (Holmes Beach, FL: Learning Publica-tions, 1991).

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

FANTASIES. Fantasies are imaginary projections, oftentimes involving hidden de-sires or fears. They are part of the workings of the human mind and find expressionin cultural practices such as literature and film. In their revision of psychoanalysis

72 FEMINIST MOVEMENT

and sexology, feminist critics in the 1970s engaged various forms and functions ofsexual fantasies, focusing on the problematic use of the term rape fantasy. Likewise,female authors of the time produced narratives of rape-revenge or fictions thatinvolve rape fantasies. Both feminist thinkers and female authors insisted that justas male castration anxieties do not suggest that men wish to be castrated, so-calledrape fantasies do not prove that women crave sexual violation. Arguing that men,not women, entertain rape fantasies in order to legitimate the aggression that culturedeems inherent to male sexuality, feminists also acknowledged that women’s sexualfantasies frequently involve a dynamic of domination and submission. However,these fantasies need to be seen as products of a historically grown discourse onsexuality that has tended to project women’s sexual desire in contexts of sexualviolence, thereby suggesting that women enjoy such aggression.

Locating a fundamental gender difference in male activity versus female passivity,psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud identified sadism and mastery with masculinity, mas-ochism and submission with femininity. His beliefs were reinforced by HeleneDeutsch’s The Psychology of Women (1944), which takes masochism as a key tofemale character and assigns fantasies about rape and prostitution a pivotal placein women’s psyche. Deutsch’s claim that female libido and pain are interdependenthas been refuted by sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s studies on female sexuality as wellas by psychoanalyst Karen Horney. Horney did not doubt that women fantasizerape but argued that such fantasies are a product of traditional female acculturationrather than a symptom of some essential aspect of femininity and female desire.Along with Horney, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich furthermore assumed that rapefantasies function as a means to diminish women’s guilt feelings with regard totheir sexual desires and practices. Such views reflect traditional assumptions aboutfemale sexuality and attest to the interdependent cultural construction of sexualityand sexual violence. Since women have always remained marginal to the construc-tion of sexuality, any attempt to enter into the struggle over sexual definition, beit by way of women’s pornography or rape fantasy fictions, involves interrogationsof traditional gender identities, sexualities, and power relations. See also: RapeMyths.

Suggested Reading: Margaret Atwood, “Rape Fantasies,” in Dancing Girls and Other Sto-ries (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 101–110; Molly Haskell, “The 2000-Year-Old Misunderstanding: Rape Fantasy,” Ms. (November 1976): 84–86, 92–98.

SABINE SIELKE

FEMINIST MOVEMENT. The feminist movement can claim political roots thatstretch back many years. During the twentieth century, the political impact of thefeminist movement has been significant, for example, in the United Kingdom inrelation to women’s right to vote in elections. The feminist influence on how weunderstand rape is a key factor in understanding how we conceptualize the phe-nomenon of rape, both in academic and popular arenas. This influence stems largelyfrom the developments in feminism from the 1970s onward.

Prior to the 1970s, rape as a political issue was largely ignored. Those interestedin the problems of society (such as Karl Marx or Sigmund Freud) had little to sayabout the position of women in general or about the sexual abuse of women bymen in particular. The 1970s can be considered a kind of watershed in how weunderstood society, as there was a change in how those in advanced industrialized

FEMINIST MOVEMENT 73

nations (such as the United States and the United Kingdom) understood themselvesin relation to society. Up until the late 1960s and 1970s, explanations for the socialaspects of life tended to be restricted to traditional understandings of the politicalLeft (collectivists) and the political Right (individualists). From the late 1960s and1970s onward, more critical social understandings began to emerge. The earliestradical perspectives to emerge were those related to social class and ethnicity. Fol-lowing these, feminism emerged in the early 1970s and demonstrated that societyis patriarchal. Or in other words, our social culture is structured in a way that givesmen more power than women, resulting in the oppression of women by men. Thefeminist movement built up and continues to hold a significant degree of politicalinfluence. It aims to draw attention to social issues that impact on women’s lives,such as health care, reproduction, and the environment. One of the most importantissues that feminism has commented on consistently since the 1970s is the issue ofsexual violence.

Anne Edwards, a contemporary feminist academic, describes the feminist move-ment’s attitude toward male sexual violence during the 1970s as “two-wave.” Inthe earlier half of the 1970s, rape was seen as a separate issue from other forms ofmen’s abuse of women. Rape was perceived as playing a relatively minor role inwomen’s oppression, in comparison to the influence that male control of socialinstitutions (such as education) had on women’s lives. A culture of victim blamingwas common, and a main priority for the feminist movement was to highlight thatrape was men’s responsibility. But during the 1970s the feminist perspective onsexual violence developed. In the later period, rape became understood as just oneexample of the general pattern of male abuse of women, and ideas of what rapeactually is changed. Violent rape was still the focus, but it was not seen as the onlymanifestation of sexual violence. Some feminists argued that heterosexual sex itselfwas an abusive, male-controlled political institution. The argument behind this viewis that rape exists where women do not give consent to intercourse. If women livein a male-controlled society, then they are not able to give free consent. Therefore,if women are not able to consent, all heterosexual sex can be considered a violation.This viewpoint that all heterosexual sex is violative is not supported by all feminists,and there has been continued debate about the issue (not least by feminists whohappen to be happy as heterosexuals). But the point remains an important one forthose interested in understanding rape, because it was at this point that rape stoppedbeing seen as an unusual phenomenon. Rape came to be seen as only one aspectof a broader and everyday pattern of male violence toward women.

Since the 1970s, feminism has had a significant impact on how we understandwhat rape is and how best to deal with this social problem. The contribution ofindividual feminists varies because the feminist perspective incorporates so manyother political perspectives. Within the feminist movement, one may encounter lib-eral feminists, radical feminists, Marxist feminists, and poststructural feminists, toname but a few. Feminists have one common interest: the ways that women aresystematically oppressed by a patriarchal society and the impact of this oppressionon women’s lives. But the debates within feminism are often as fierce as thosebetween feminists and their detractors. Indeed, one of the reasons why the feministperspective is so useful is that feminist ideas emerge from conflict and debate, whichmeans that their explanations tend to be very thorough and well tested.

The feminist perspective has unintentionally dominated both popular and aca-demic discussions of rape and sexual assault—compared to the mainstream, femi-

74 FILMS, FOREIGN

nists have found rape a more interesting topic and therefore have discussed thistopic more than anyone else. Without the feminist perspective, we would have amore limited understanding of the social context of sexual assault. Feminism iden-tified rape as a blind spot in our understandings of society and has brought thisissue to our attention. However, the feminist movement has its own blind spot.Now that rape has been firmly established on the political agenda, it is possible tolook more critically at how feminism has helped us to understand rape. Manywithin the feminist perspective appear to be unconditionally committed to the ideaof masculinity as always problematic and to the idea that sexual violence is bydefinition a thing that men do to women. Topics such as domestic violence betweenlesbian partners and male rape pose significant problems for the feminist perspec-tive, which have yet to be resolved. See also: National Organization for Women(NOW); Patriarchy; Rape History in the United States: Twentieth Century.

Suggested Reading: Anne Edwards, “Male Violence in Feminist Theory: An Analysis of theChanging Conceptions of Sex/Gender Violence and Male Dominance,” in Women, Violenceand Social Control, ed. J. Hanmer and M. Maynard (London: Macmillan, 1990), 13–29;C. Smart, “Feminist Approaches to Criminology or Postmodern Woman Meets AtavisticMan,” in Feminist Perspectives in Criminology, ed. L. Gelsthorpe and A. Morris (Bristol:Open University Press, 1992), 70–84.

RUTH GRAHAM

FILMS, FOREIGN. One of the earliest films to depict a rape was Spanish directorLuis Bunuel’s first short film, Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929), a 20-minute surrealist essay co-scripted with his friend, the artist Salvador Dali. Themovie was an avant-garde essay about desire, love, and death. The first scenes areshocking: a woman’s eye is cut with a knife, and then a man who cannot controlhis desire assaults that same woman. In another 1920s film, the woman was theaggressor. Asphalt (1928) was a silent movie directed by German filmmaker JoeMay. In this film, a woman seduces a policeman and forces him to love her phys-ically.

Rape began to be shown more explicitly and violently in the 1960s. Swedishfilmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring (1960) adapted a legend from the four-teenth century about a spring that emerged where a young girl was raped and killed.The victim’s father gets revenge by killing the three brothers who committed thecrime. Polish director Roman Polanski’s first English-language movie, Repulsion(1965), starred Catherine Deneuve as a young woman alone in an apartment,haunted by a repetitive vision of her own rape by an unknown hidden man. It isunclear what part is reality or phantasm. Polanski’s psychological horror movieillustrates the common feeling of being observed by somebody who is waiting toattack when you are most vulnerable.

In Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), a young Nazi opportunist, played byHelmut Berger, forces his mother to make love to him. Visconti’s violent but mel-odramatic film depicts the rise of fascism through one morally corrupt family. Stan-ley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) takes a comic approach to an extremelyviolent rape scene. In Last Tango in Paris (1972), Italian director Bernardo Berto-lucci shows a woman (Maria Schneider) raped twice in an empty apartment by anaging Marlon Brando; she seems to more or less accept the situation. In this un-conventional movie, rape is shown as the beginning of a perverse relationship.

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In Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom (freely adapted from Sade), Italian director PierPaolo Pasolini shows an institutional ritual of rape made by fascists during WorldWar II; for Pasolini, it was a way to show that only the most perverse and powerfulfascists could torture and rape in a purely sadistic way.

Although German filmmakers have also made films about the Holocaust or fas-cism that include scenes of rape, such as The Tin Drum (directed by Volker Schlon-dorff in 1982, from Gunther Grass’s novel), in which there are two violent rapescenes, there are many movies by German filmmakers that are not Holocaust relatedbut that do include rape scenes. For example, a mysterious and unusual moviedirected by Eric Rohmer from a novel by Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise vonO (The Marquise of O, 1976), involves an eighteenth-century widow who becomespregnant for no possible reason. She publishes an add in a local newspaper, askingfor the father to acknowledge and present himself. We learn at the very end of themovie that a soldier raped the woman while she was unconscious, during a battlein the Russian war.

Some films have focused on the rape of children. The 1931 movie M by FritzLang is an intense story of a serial killer who seduced, raped, and killed younggirls. The police cannot find him; it is the mafia and beggars who ultimately hunthim down. In Luis Bunuel’s film, adapted from Octave Mirbeau’s novel Journald’une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid, 1964), Bunuel indicates in analmost poetic, though tragic, fashion that a child was raped and killed. The directordoes not show the violent scene, but indicates it occurred by showing snails movingon the girl’s motionless body, isolated in the woods.

There are many other French films that include rape scenes. A French film madeby Walerian Borowzyk, Immoral Tales (Contes immoraux, 1974), explores the vi-olent mix of eroticism and rape and had huge success. In an obscure thriller, Cath-erine et compagnie (Catherine and Company, dir. Michel Boisrond, 1975), JaneBirkin rapes a man tied in his bed. In La Derobade (The Evasion, dir. Daniel Duval,from Jeanne Cordelier’s novel, 1979), a film about prostitution, hookers are oftenraped. But the French film that raised many questions was L’amour viole (LoveViolates, dir. Yannick Bellon, 1977), in which a sometimes emotionless woman triesto identify one of the four men who raped her and calls the police. The theme ofrevenge is also present in French blockbuster L’Ete meurtrier (One Deadly Summer,dir. Jean Becker, 1983), where a young and sexy woman tries to find the man whoraped her mother, in other words, her biological father. A controversial French filmthat was banned in France, Baise Moi (Rape Me, 2000) is a violent and provocativefilm by Virginie Despentes. It depicted many rape scenes where sometimes men werevictims of dangerous and murderous women.

In contrast, some Canadian films have shown rape scenes in an almost casualway. The Rape of a Sweet Young Girl (Le Viol d’une jeune fille douce, dir. GillesCarle, 1968) depicts a collective rape shown almost as a joke; so the same thinggoes in Taureau (Bull, dir. Clement Perron, 1973) and Gina (dir. Denys Arcand,1975). But another Canadian movie, produced by the National Film Board (NFB)of Canada, Mourir a tue-tete (A Scream from Silence, 1978), by Anne-Claire Poirier,is a mix of deconstructive fiction and documentary about a nurse who is raped byan unknown man. The individual story becomes generalized in the film’s secondhalf. The director explains that there is always a secondary rape, made by police-men, physicians, husbands, and friends who ask for details. The film also gives auniversal portrait of rape and brutalization of women through countries, civiliza-

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tions, and ages, including mutilations made to young girls in African countries.Although it contains some generalizations about men (“Any man in the crowd couldbe a rapist”), this radical movie remains among the best of all movies about rape.

Male rape of both men and boys has been portrayed in a number of Canadianfilms. For example, in the Canadian drama Night Zoo (dir. Jean-Claude Lauzon,1987), a prisoner is raped by another man. In 1992, a controversial movie andminiseries The Boys from St Vincent (by John N. Smith) told the true story of youngboys who were sexually abused in a Newfoundland orphanage during the 1950s.The film was released at the time when the case was in court.

Wartime rape has also been a theme for Canadian filmmakers. Atom Egoyan,for example, shows rape as a crime of war in his recent Ararat (2001), a movieabout the Armenian genocide by the Turkish army. Documentaries, too, explorewartime rape. Nes de la haine (Born of Hatred, 2002) is a Canadian film directedby Raymonde Provencher. It is about the thousands of women who were rapedduring recent conflicts in Bosnia-Hergezovina, the Balkans, or Rwanda and whoconsequently gave birth to children.

Directors from all over the world have made films about rape. Bandit Queen(1994), a film by Shekar Kapur, is a less-than-accurate portrayal of the life ofPhoolan Devi, India’s real Bandit Queen. It is filled with rape scenes beginning withthe rape of Devi as a child bride. Spanish director Pedro Almodovar has includedrape scenes in several of his films. In Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) a woman seeks revengeon her rapist. In his film Kika (1993), a woman is raped by an actor, and the sceneis aired on Spanish TV as a weird reality show. In Talk to Her (2002), a hospitalattendant takes care of a young woman who is in a coma. He rapes her, and whenthe child is born, the mother awakes. This controversial story raises the question:Did rape cure the comatose woman?

Having to face new issues and forms of censorship, feature films show the levelsof violence that a society (audiences and censors) can tolerate in the representationof rape. See also: Film, U.S.; Literature, World and American; Pornography.

Suggested Reading: Derek Jones, ed., Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Chicago:Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001); Anton Kaes, M (London: British Film Institute, 2000);Andre Loiselle, Mourir a tue-tete (A Scream from Silence) (Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England:Flicks Books, 2000).

YVES LABERGE

FILMS, U.S. Since the beginning of film history, American movies have includedscenes of rape and sexual violence. An early example from the silent era can beseen in D.W. Griffith’s famous Birth of a Nation (1916). This movie, based onThomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman, includes a dramatic scene in which a beast-like black man is intent on raping a virginal white woman, depicting in visual formthe fears of many white southerners during this time. Griffith portrays the Klans-men, who come to the young woman’s rescue, as heroes, reflecting the views ofmany post-Reconstuction Southerners. However, many people rejected this viewand protested the film. Oscar Micheaux made a daring response in Within OurGates (1919), the first feature film directed by an African American. This movietells the story of a black woman who is nearly raped by a white man, followingthe lynching of her parents.

Interracial rape is the focus of a number of American films. For example, Robert

FILMS, U.S. 77

Mulligan directed To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), with an Academy Award–winningscreenplay by Horton Foote, based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novelabout race relations in a small southern town. Atticus Finch, played by GregoryPeck, defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. In the more recentfilm, A Time to Kill (1996), directed by Joel Schmacher and based on a John Gris-ham book, rape, race relations, and the courtroom once again intersect, as a whitelawyer defends a black man who tried to gain revenge after two white men rapedhis daughter.

The degree to which an American film could show, or even allude to, rape, in-terracial or not, has varied depending on when it was filmed. The Hollywood scan-dals of the 1920s, followed by the introduction of “talkies,” led to the censorshipof movies by state censorship boards. The Movie Production Code, first adoptedin 1930, was seen as a way that movie studios could self-police their work. Itoutlined strict prohibitions against showing nudity or anything that might be con-sidered “immoral.” Nevertheless, many movies slipped by the code in the early1930s. One of these was The Story of Temple Drake (1933), the film version ofWilliam Faulkner’s controversial novel Sanctuary. Temple Drake is a promiscuouswoman, the daughter of a Southern judge. She is picked up, then kidnapped by theleader of a gang of gangsters. After he rapes her, she kills him. Temple Drake laterconfesses to the murder and admits that she enjoyed the rape. After 1934, fewmovies such as this were made for the next couple decades. Pressure from religiousleaders and the threat of federal censorship forced movie studios to enforce theProduction Code, also known as the Hays Code, from William H. Hays (1879–1954), who cowrote these rules. However, by the 1960s, the social climate hadchanged, the Production Code was no longer being enforced, and it was eventuallyreplaced with the movie rating system.

In the 1960s and 1970s, several U.S. films depicted brutal rapes. Straw Dogs(1971), a film by Sam Peckinpah, is filled with graphic violence. It aims to portraythe violence lurking just beneath the surface of civilization. The film is set in Corn-wall, where an American professor has settled with his British-born wife to escapethe conflicts of U.S. society. After a series of menacing actions, the town bullieseventually gang rape his wife. James Boorman’s Deliverance (1972) also questionsthe idea of what lies just beyond civilized society and people. The plot concernsfour men who decide to take a break from city life to canoe down a river in thebackwoods of Georgia. In addition to its famous “Dueling Banjoes” music, the filmis often remembered for its brutal scene in which two of the men are attacked bybackwoodsmen, and one of them is raped.

Although made in 1989, Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War also looks at thistime of upheaval in American society. However, he examines the war in Vietnam.The movie focuses on the gang rape of young Vietnamese women by Americansoldiers and the aftermath of war crimes.

Also in the 1980s, director David Lynch explored what lies beneath the veneerof middle-class American society. In the disturbing Blue Velvet (1986), Lynchprobed at the horrors lurking underneath the surface of the quintessential Americantown, which includes rape, sadomasochism, and sexual compulsion. These arethemes he later developed in his television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991).

As the feminist movement moved rape into public discourse, some movies beganto look more closely at the victims and survivors of rape. The Accused (1988),based on a true story of a gang rape, examines how women are often accused of

78 FORCIBLE RAPE

“asking to be raped,” because they dress a certain way or dare to be in a particularplace. There were also films in which women sought revenge on their attackers,such as Extremities (1986) and Thelma and Louise (1991). More recently, BoysDon’t Cry (1999) recounts the true-life story of Brandon Teena (born Teena Bran-don), who was born female but lived life as a male and was beaten, raped, andultimately murdered when her secret was discovered. See also: Films, Foreign; Lit-erature, World and American; Popular Culture; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: Matthew Bernstein, ed., Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Reg-ulation in the Studio Era (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999); SusanBrownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine,1975); Ruth Petrie, ed., Film and Censorship: The Index Reader (London: Cassell, 1997).

YVES LABERGE AND MERRIL D. SMITH

FORCIBLE RAPE. Forcible rape is the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly andagainst her will. Assaults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of forceare included; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses areexcluded.” This 2001 definition by the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program alsoexcludes male rape. Other sources that have recognized that rape is not only maleto female have broadened their definitions to include adult males and children ofboth sexes. A Missouri sexual offense statute states “a person commits the crimeof forcible rape if such person has sexual intercourse with another person by theuse of forcible compulsion. Forcible compulsion includes the use of a substanceadministered without a victim’s knowledge or consent which renders the victimphysically or mentally impaired so as to be incapable of making an informed con-sent to sexual intercourse.”

The question of force is problematic because the threat of harm is strong enoughto frighten the victim into acceding without physical resistance. In the case of stat-utory rape, even if the minor gives consent, it is not acceptable under the law. Theage of consent differs from state to state and ranges from 12 to 18. Sexual inter-course with a person who is mentally deficient, unconscious, or incapable of givingconsent is also sometimes considered statutory rape.

The word force and the term without her consent have been written into certainlaws, but the boundaries are fuzzy because definitions vary. In one study, a dis-tinction was made between forcible rape and rapes where girls were seduced firstand then attacked (Amir). Force can be used at any stage in a rape, from a logisticaladvantage such as ambush to overt aggression if a perpetrator does not obtainverbal consent. Unlike any other crime, in forcible rape, the burden is on the victimto prove it occurred.

It is estimated that in 1998, 67 of every 100,000 females in the country werereported rape victims; however, it was also estimated that only 1 in 10 rapes wasreported (Ruth, 233). From that information, one can conclude that validity andreliability of statistics are confusing at best. Although national statistics includeassault and attempts, other studies only count rapes that were completed. Otherreasons for underreporting are that the victim fears future attacks or publication ofher identity. In certain crimes where there are multiple offenses, forced rape occur-rences are included.

Because male rape most frequently occurs in prison populations or in other malepopulations, such as male religious orders, it has been downplayed. Male rape

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within prisons, if reported, is classified as either assault or sexual offense. The vic-tims of priests and members of the clergy have been silent because frequently theyare so young and shamed that they do not understand what has happened or areafraid to report the abuse. Sometimes they wait a lifetime before reporting it. Inaddition, until recently, the church has failed to rid itself of perpetrators by refusingto accept complaints. See also: Rape, Definitions of; Rape Law; Rape Statistics;Sexual Assault.

Suggested Reading: Menachim Amir, Patterns in Forcible Rape (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1971); Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Bantam, 1976); FBI Uniform Crime Report 2001, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_00/00crime2_4.pdf; Missouri House Bill 1656, http://www.house.state.mo.us/pr/Monitor/Archive2002/Mon4-25.doc/; Sheila Ruth, Women’s Personal Lives: The Effects of Sexism onSelf and Relationships in Issues in Feminism (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1995).

LANA THOMPSON

FOREIGN-OBJECT RAPE. Foreign-object rape refers to the placement of an ob-ject into the vaginal, rectal, oral, or other orifice of an individual. Examples aboundin cinema and literature. In the movie True Confessions (dir. Ulu Grosbard, 1981),loosely based on the real-life “Black Dahlia” case, the rapist stuffs a church candleinto a young girl’s vagina after raping and killing her, following the making of apornographic film. One extreme cinematic example occurs in A Clockwork Orange(dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1971) where a woman doing yoga in a leotard is attacked,then raped with a huge phallic sculpture. In the book The Painted Bird, written byJerzy Kosinski in 1965, a Polish woman, severely traumatized as a result of gangrape when young, is known as “Stupid Ludmilla.” She seduces a man who strikesand bites her. When a group of women witness the attack, instead of pulling himoff, they attack her further and shove a bottle filled with cow manure into hervagina. When it will go no further, they kick it, shattering the glass inside her. A1920s newsstory tells of an aspiring actress forced to suffer the sexual advances ofa drunk, morbidly obese man. When he finds himself too intoxicated to completethe act, he rapes her with a wine bottle. She dies three days later from a rupturedbladder.

Fiction or nonfiction, these narratives are studied by psychologists and forensicpsychiatrists in order to understand the motivation for, and provide an explanationfor, such brutal behavior. According to collected statistics, it is fairly common. Inone study of 418 victims, only four cases reported penetration with a foreign object,although 40 percent reported digital penetration (Grossin et al.). Some say that theobject represents a virile penis for the perpetrator who would otherwise be impo-tent. Others explain that raping with objects further humiliates the victim whileamplifying the power of the attacker. The choice of object could be opportunisticor symbolic. If the rape is followed by murder, the object, as part of the crimescene, can provide information about the perpetrator.

A variety of legal definitions abound in the United States with regard to foreign-object rape. In some states, rape with a foreign object is classified as sexual assault.In New York State, digital rape (using a finger) is included in the foreign-objectdefinition. In Pennsylvania, foreign-object rape is considered deviate sexual inter-course. In Georgia, “aggravated sexual battery” is the name given to foreign-objectrape.

80 FRATERNITIES

Internationally, there is variation as well. The definition of rape in the Turkishcode of law is extremely limited compared with definitions accepted in internationalhumanitarian law. There, rape with a foreign object and forced oral sex are notdefined as rape, and documented instances of sexual assault on women have in-cluded rape by high-pressure hoses.

Statistics are difficult to obtain with regard to rape with a foreign object. In onestudy done on 30 men classified as sexual sadists, foreign-object penetration wasthe least common sexual activity of the four studied (anal, forced fellatio, vaginal,and foreign-object). However, the majority of the men subjected their victims tothree of the four acts (Hazelwood, Dietz, and Warren). The decision a victim makesto report rape with a foreign object, or assaults involving oral or digital sex, isdifficult to make, just as reporting other types of rape varies with the victim’sacknowledgment of the crime and motivation to undergo the stresses involved inthe legal process. See also: Glen Ridge (NJ) Rape Case.

Suggested Reading: Amnesty International Australia, “Defending Women’s HumanRights,” http://www.amnesty.org.au/women/action-letter14.html; Cecile Grossin et al.,“Analysis of 418 Cases of Sexual Assault,” Forensic Science International 131 (2003): 125–130; Robert R. Hazelwood, Park Elliot Dietz, and Janet Warren, “The Criminal SexualSadist,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (February 1992); Arnold S. Kahn et al., “Calling ItRape: Differences in Experiences of Women Who Do or Do Not Label Their Sexual Assaultas Rape,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 27.3 (September 2003): 233–242; Jerzy Kosinski,The Painted Bird (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965).

LANA THOMPSON

FRATERNITIES. Fraternities are societies that are open to male college studentsin Canada and the United States who are invited to join. These societies are oftenassociated with certain forms of social behavior such as excessive secrecy and sol-idarity among members. Fraternities have been of some considerable interest tothose researching rape, and rape in the context of college or university life is animportant aspect of the phenomenon in general. It allows examination of a popu-lation that is perceived to be particularly vulnerable (on the part of female students)and particularly sexually predatory (on the part of male students). It also helps tounderstand that sexual assault is not simply an issue of disturbed individuals. In-stead, rape can be seen as an extreme form of a more general pattern of (oftengendered) sexual violence, which is supported by the more “everyday” aspects ofsocial culture. Because of these issues, the growing tradition for studying U.S. col-lege campus culture in the context of sexual assault is to be expected.

The interest in fraternities and rape indicates an interest in explaining why rapehappens. Explanations for why rape happens vary. Some see rape as an issue ofindividual psychopathology, regarding rapists as relatively rare and as deviant fromthe normal psychology of the general population. Others see rape as not just theresponsibility of the individuals involved but also as a reflection of our social orcultural values. In other words, the rapist’s perspective or opinions are conceptu-alized as an extension of normal values, rather than as intrinsically different fromthe norm. Indeed, some argue that when rapists are asked about how they feelabout their crimes, they often draw on everyday cultural beliefs to justify theirsexual violence. For example, everyday beliefs about acceptable sexual behavior(such as women “leading men on”) may be used to justify rape. These “rape myths”

FREE LOVE MOVEMENT 81

are sometimes used to explain why rape happens. They have important conse-quences for how survivors are perceived (and whether they as victims end up beingseen as responsible for the rape) and for how rapists are dealt with when identified(for example, through “treatment/therapy” or punishment/penalty). Those who ar-gue that social culture has a role to play in the causes of rape have therefore shownmore interest in studying that social culture. The role that fraternities play in en-couraging a culture of sexual violence is a topic that falls into this interest in thesocial aspects of rape.

The social culture associated with fraternities has been identified as problematicfrom a rape prevention perspective. This is because there are several key character-istics of fraternity culture that can be considered “rape supportive,” such as secrecy,loyalty to the fraternity, and the established use of strategies to ensure sexual accessto young women—for example, the strategic use of alcohol to make victims morewilling to submit to sex or less able to resist rape. The incidences of rape that takeplace within this culture may vary, from a systematic gang rape to the more am-biguous sexual coercion in the context of dating. The important point is that all ofthese sexual abuses take place against a social backdrop that sees sexual coercionas acceptable, even desirable, masculine behavior. Contemporary researchers in thisfield, such as Martin and Hummer, have addressed this issue specifically. They haveargued that campus fraternity culture encourages the overriding of ethical decisionmaking and also encourages a commitment to a particularly competitive form ofmasculinity where women are seen as a sexual commodity. In addition to the anal-ysis of fraternity social culture, there is also work on the “everyday” sexual coercivebehavior in the college population, such as emotional blackmail. Again, this workappears to be associated with college populations in the United States. Both withinand beyond the United States, college populations appear to hold the attention ofthose interested in discovering why rape happens. The question of why these pop-ulations hold such popularity is an interesting one and could help to open up theresearch agenda on rape to a more critical evaluation that is long overdue. See also:Campus Rape; Rape, Causes of.

Suggested Reading: J.A. Allison and L.S. Wrightsman, Rape: The Misunderstood Crime(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993); P.Y. Martin and R.A. Hummer, “Fraternities and Rapeon Campus,” in Violence against Women: The Bloody Footprints, ed. P.B. Bart and E.G.Moran (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), 114–131; C.L. Muehlenhard and C.S. Rodgers,“Token Resistance to Sex: New Perspectives on an Old Stereotype,” Psychology of WomenQuarterly, 22.3 (1998): 443–463.

RUTH GRAHAM

FREE LOVE MOVEMENT. The free love movement was born from the historicalshifts brought about by the industrial revolution and the rise of the middle class.Spanning more than a century, people of various intellectual backgrounds embracedthe growing movement: utopian socialists, anarchists, feminists, and sex radicals.Beginning in the 1820s, free lovers embraced the idea that love should be the basisfor sexual relations, not marriage and not reproduction. While free lovers experi-mented with different living arrangements and challenged restrictive laws, they alsowere the first to contemplate institutionalized rape.

Free lover advocates and writers such as Mary Nichols and Victoria Woodhullturned their attention to marital rape. Both were from New York City, representing

82 FREUD, SIGMUND/FREUDIAN THEORY

the shifting opportunities that city life offered for women. Nichols emerged ontothe free love scene in the 1840s and 1850s. Although married, she deserted andthen divorced her first husband. While Nichols questioned the institution of mar-riage, she also turned her attention to sexual relations and marital rape. Nicholsvehemently criticized violence against women that occurred in marriage because ofthe law. Men controlled their wives’ properties. But they also controlled their bod-ies, since by law, men were entitled to sexual relations with their wives regardlessof their wives’ desires. Woodhull was a suffragist, but like Nichols, she was also afree love supporter. Like Nichols, Woodhull condemned the concept of wifely dutywhereby husbands were entitled to have sex with their wives regardless of theirwives’ sexual and/or reproductive desires. In 1834, Woodhull wrote, “Of all thebrutalities of the age, I know none so horrid as those sanctioned and defended bymarriage. Night after night there are thousands of rapes committed” (Stern, 8).

Both Nichols and Woodhull recanted their free love ideas later in life. However,both women discussed and acknowledge a dirty little secret in family life and ju-risprudence: the existence of marital rape. Their early writings served as a guide tofuture arguments regarding violence against women in the form of institutionalizedrape in the home. See also: Rape History in the United States: Nineteenth Century.

Suggested Reading: Hal D. Sears, The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America(Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1997); John C. Spurlock, Free Love: Marriage andMiddle Class Radicalism in America, 1825–1860 (New York: New York University Press,1988); Madeline Stern, ed., The Victoria Woodhull Reader (Weston, MA: M&S Press, 1874).

ELAINE CAREY

FREUD, SIGMUND/FREUDIAN THEORY. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud(1856–1939) wrote little explicitly about rape. However, because psychoanalysis isfundamentally concerned with human desire and aggression, at least two arenas ofFreud’s work can be isolated in which sexual violence is a strong theme: his earlydiscussion of “the seduction hypothesis” and his later attempts to apply psycho-analysis to society.

Freud began his career by working with hysterical patients in Vienna. In the latenineteenth century, hysteria was a commonly diagnosed illness. As the name, fromthe Greek word for “womb,” suggests, most of those diagnosed with hysteria werefemale and exhibited a wide range of symptoms: tics, pains, anxiety, depression,fainting spells, coughing, and paralysis. The prevalent understanding of hysteriawas that it was caused by some hereditary factor, but in the early 1890s Freudcame to believe, on the basis of information given him by his patients, that it wascaused by a trauma of childhood sexual abuse, usually by fathers. The memory ofan early sexual assault would, in this view, be revived by an apparently innocentevent, and in the effort to repress the traumatic memory, the hysterical patientwould develop her symptoms. But, by 1897, Freud came to reject his “seductionhypothesis,” believing instead that the stories of early sexual abuse his patients hadtold him were in large part fantasy.

This shift in Freud’s work has been very controversial. Jeffrey Masson, a formerproject director of the Freud Archives in London, accused Freud of burying thetruth about his patients’ experiences of incest and assault for reasons of self-interestand career advancement. The recovered-memory movement followed Masson in

FREUD, SIGMUND/FREUDIAN THEORY 83

seeing Freud’s self-reversal as part of a cover-up of the pervasive problem of incest.Feminists have often agreed, arguing that rather than take seriously what his pa-tients were telling him, Freud’s post-1897 treatment of women patients reinforcedcultural stereotypes of women as liars, especially when it came to rape and sexualassault.

Yet the case is complex. Freud never denied the existence of child sexual abuse;what he rejected was the idea that it was the cause of all instances of hysteria. Atthe same time, the stereotype that women’s and girls’ accounts of sexual abuse,especially incest, are “fantasy” or outright lies was certainly not challenged byFreud’s retraction of the seduction hypothesis.

Freud never returned, in any depth, to actual instances of rape or sexual assault,but his later attempts to apply psychoanalysis to broad questions of culture andsociety allude to sexual violence in ways that, while not obvious, are nonethelessimportant. In Totem and Taboo (1913), he hypothesized about the founding ofsociety by applying insights from psychoanalysis to nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century anthropological research. He supposed a primal tribe led by one all-powerful chieftain, who controls all the tribe’s women. After the chieftain’s envioussons unite to murder their father, they are consumed with guilt for their murderousact. As a result, they internalize the dead father’s power to restrict and order theirsociety. This installation of order in the tribe entails a form of monogamy becausethe sons recognize that, in order to keep from becoming rivals of one another andentering into another cycle of violence, the women must be distributed among them.For Freud, the key moment in this anthropological story was the parricide and theway in which the sons’ guilt feelings lead to the institution of conscience and socialorder. Another important theme might be seen here: the “possession” of the tribe’swomen by a violent patriarch. The violence before the murder of the father is hisviolence toward the women of the tribe. In Freud’s story, as is the case in manyother stories in Western civilization, sexual violence functions as a foundationalevent that is later forgotten or occluded.

Freudian theory became influential in the middle of the twentieth century, af-fecting how sexuality, aggression, and women were understood by clinicians, crim-inologists, and the public. Some of Freud’s theories were revolutionary, but hisviews on women and female sexuality were shaped by Victorian ideologies. Psy-choanalysis gave the stamp of science to cultural stereotypes, often to the detrimentof understandings of sexual violence. Freudian theory tended to associate femininitywith passivity and masochism, contributing to victim blaming. In analyses of sexoffenders, Freudians were led to blame overbearing mothers for men’s violence,rather than examining other factors. In the 1970s, the feminist antirape movementcriticized the detrimental impact Freudian thought had made on women and un-derstandings of rape. See also: Deutsch, Helene.

Suggested Reading: Sigmund Freud, “The Aetiology of Hysteria,” in The Standard Editionof the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols., ed. James Strachey (Lon-don: Hogarth Press, 1953–1973), 3: 119–122 [hereafter cited as SE]; Sigmund Freud, “Letterto Wilhelm Fleiss, September 22, 1897,” SE, 1: 259–260; Sigmund Freud, Three Essays onthe Theory of Sexuality, SE, vol. 7; Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, SE, 13: 1–161; PeterGay, ed., The Freud Reader (New York: Norton, 1989); Jeffrey Moussaief Masson, TheAssault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Harper, 1985).

SARA MURPHY

84 FRIEDAN, BETTY

FRIEDAN, BETTY (1921– ). The mother of the second wave of the feministmovement, author and feminist Betty Friedan changed the views of women in theUnited States with the publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Althoughwritten from the point of view of an educated, unfulfilled suburban housewife,Friedan had been a social activist for a number of years. Her work built upon ideasgrounded in the Left, union work, and the civil rights movement. By the 1950s,her work already showed a growing criticism of the status of women.

Friedan was born in 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. Always an intelligent child, primaryand secondary school were not easy places for Friedan; she was viewed as toobookish. When she went to Smith College, Friedan discovered a whole new worldthat offered her respect and opportunities. While at Smith College and after, sheembarked on a journalism career that took her from student newspapers to unionnewspaper writing. After college, she met and married ex-GI Carl Friedan.

While married to Carl, Friedan worked as a freelance writer for different women’smagazines. She also began work on The Feminine Mystique while living the life ofa New York suburban housewife. In the early 1960s, rape, particularly marital rape,was not considered an important social or feminine issue. Although biographershave elaborated on the violence that plagued the Friedan marriage, Friedan avoideddiscussions of marital violence or rape in her own writing. Instead, she focused onthe educated suburban housewife’s sense of alienation in The Feminine Mystique.

The Feminine Mystique spoke to the experiences of a number of women. Buildingon the success of the book, Friedan formed the National Organization for Women(NOW). Yet it is significant that The Feminine Mystique did not discuss rape. Ittook time for rape to become an important issue in the feminist movement. By thetime it did, Friedan’s more conservative views of the early 1960s no longer reflectedthe viewpoint of the women’s movement, which shifted in the late 1960s and 1970s.Other women emerged as leaders who addressed other issues such as rape anddomestic violence. Thus, Friedan found herself at the margins of a movement shehelped establish, replaced by younger women who addressed issues that Friedanavoided. See also: Steinem, Gloria.

Suggested Reading: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Laurel Press, 1984);Judith Hennessee, Betty Friedan: Her Life (New York: Random House, 1999); DanielHorowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique: The American Left, theCold War, and Modern Feminism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).

ELAINE CAREY

G

GAMMAHYDROXYBUTYRATE (GHB). Gammahydroxybutyrate is a centralnervous system depressant that was first used in the 1960s as an anesthetic andlater as a body-building supplement. Although illegal due to the serious adverseeffects that can even lead to death, GHB has become a recreational or “club drug.”It is popular at “Raves,” the all-night dance parties that are often held at beachcommunities. The attraction of GHB is due to two potent sources: the experienceof euphoria associated with GHB and the increase in sex drive. As a “date rapedrug,” GHB reduces inhibitions, relaxes muscles, and produces amnesia. The in-toxicating effects usually begin within 10 to 20 minutes following ingestion andcan last up to four hours. Date rape drugs can be easily put into an open drink sothat the potential victim for the sexual assault is completely unaware of the act.With respect to gathering evidence for a charge of rape, GHB cannot be detectedby most hospital urine or blood toxicology screens.

GHB, a drug whose street names include “liquid Ecstasy,” “Grievous BodilyHarm,” and “Georgia Homeboy,” is available in a liquid form for drinking or awhite powder for smoking and snorting. In its liquid form, GHB is odorless, col-orless, and has a slightly salty taste that is easily masked in a mixed drink. It issomewhat less expensive than either Ecstasy or ketamine. Since GHB is a centralnervous system depressant, ingestion can result in slurred speech, blurred vision,dizziness, nausea and vomiting, numbness, convulsions, unconsciousness, andcoma. When consumed with alcohol, it is even more dangerous than when con-sumed alone.

Despite the illegal status of GHB, it is relatively easy to obtain. The recipe andthe ingredients are actually available on the Internet. One of the ingredients, 1,4-butanediol, is sold legally in health food stores as a dietary supplement. The otheringredients that are used to produce GHB are industrial solvents that have beenneutralized. GHB can be manufactured in someone’s garage or basement by a per-son with no training in chemistry and a lack of knowledge of quality control.

The larger the dose of GHB, the greater the risk for negative consequences.

86 GANG RAPE

Higher doses can actually lead to coma and cardiac or respiratory arrest. For thosewho want to stop using the drug, withdrawal can also be lethal. Low doses of GHBproduce euphoria, an “out-of-body” high, increased sex drive, memory loss, andhallucinations. Since the effects of GHB wear off in two hours, the user is in con-stant need of more of the drug to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symp-toms include insomnia, tremors, confusion, disorientation, delirium, nausea, andvomiting. See also: Rohypnol.

Suggested Reading: Club Drugs.org, http://www.clubdrugs.org; Jaime Diaz, How DrugsInfluence Behavior: Neuro-behavioral Approach (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,1997); Harold E. Doweiko, Concepts of Chemical Dependency, 5th ed. (Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole, 2002); Kathiann M. Kowaksi, “Club Drugs: Nothing to Rave About,” CurrentHealth 2.28 (2002): 6–12; Partnership for a Drug-Free America, http://www.drugfreeamerica.org; Joseph H. Pittman, “What You Need to Know about GHB,” Nursing 32(2002): CC6–CC7; Richard Sadovsky, “Gamma-hydroxybutyrate and Withdrawal Syn-drome,” American Family Physician 54 (2001): 1059–1062; Substance Abuse and MentalHealth Services Administration’s National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information,http://www.health.org.

SHARON A. DROZDOWSKI AND JUDITH A. WATERS

GANG RAPE. Gang rape is sexualized violence involving two or more assailants.It is nothing new; it appears in the Bible (Judges 19–20) in the tale of the EphraimLevite’s concubine. Gang rapes are more common than people think. They are afrequent occurrence in war and with gangs. In Renaissance Florence, one-third ofall reported heterosexual rapes and many homosexual rapes were gang rapes.

Gang rapes are employed as a method of punishment, social control, bonding,and as a rite of passage. For example, soldiers rape women as a way of humiliatingtheir opponents and disrupting their society. They also increase the ties betweenthe assailants. Another example involves the gang rapes performed by young ap-prentices in southern France in the fifteenth century. These rapes tied the men to-gether, punished women deviating from the social norm, and were a rite of passageinto manhood. Gang rape sometimes serves a religious purpose. Among the Xin-guano peoples of central Brazil, the Kauka ritual involves men playing music onsacred flutes. If a woman sees the performance, she is gang raped, which is attrib-uted to the spirit Kauka operating through the men.

Gang rapists do not necessarily always commit an assault with any of these con-sequences in mind, and it is important to distinguish the act of violence and theconscious goals from the resultant effects for all involved. The intentions of eachindividual rapist may vary. In some cases, the assault is the result of a group de-cision; in others, it is initiated by a leader or small group of those involved. Some-times, it is a crime of opportunity; in other cases, the victim has been sought out.Some participate willingly, while others are coerced.

Gang rapes are even more difficult to prosecute than rapes involving only oneassailant (but when successfully prosecuted will usually result in a harsher punish-ment). This is because the assailants may provide alibis for each other or offerdiffering versions of events, making it hard for the authorities. Victims of suchattacks are often reluctant to report it because they fear reprisals from more thanone person. When gang rape is a form of initiation for either an assailant or victim,silence is the price of inclusion. See also: Fraternities; Glen Ridge (NJ) Rape Case;Wartime Rape.

GAYS AND LESBIANS 87

Suggested Reading: Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Rape, Genocide, and Women’s HumanRights,” in Violence against Women: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Stanley G. French,Wanda Teays, and Laura M. Purdy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 43–54;Cecilia McCallum, “Ritual and the Origin of Sexuality in the Alto Xingu,” in Sex andViolence: Issues in Representation and Experience, ed. Penelope Harvey and Peter Gow (NewYork: Routledge, 1994), 90–114; Jacques Rossiaud, “Prostitution, Youth, and Society in theTowns of Southern France in the Fifteenth Century,” in Deviants and the Abandoned inFrench Society: Selections from the Annales Economies, Societes Civilisations, ed. RobertForster and Orest Ranum, trans. Elborg Forster and Patricia M. Ranum (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1978), 1–46.

TONYA MARIE LAMBERT

GAYS AND LESBIANS. Gays and lesbians are men and women who are involvedin intimate sexual and emotional relationships with members of the same sex. Themore clinical term homosexual, coined in 1869, has fallen out of popular usage.While gay describes homosexual men and lesbian refers to homosexual women, theterm gay by itself is at times inclusive of both men and women.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, gays and lesbians have identified them-selves as such to each other, their families, and the general public in record numbersin efforts to challenge the oppression they faced for being homosexual. This move-ment for civil rights has achieved rapid success since its widely recognized beginningin the New York City Stonewall Riots of 1969. This challenge to police harassmentand brutality marked a turning point and rallying cry for the budding movement,though organizations such as the Mattachine Society for gay men and the lesbianDaughters of Bilitis were formed over a decade earlier in San Francisco.

Gay men and lesbians, long stigmatized by accusations of immorality, perversion,and antisocial behavior, won their first great national victory when the AmericanPsychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in1973. Both great advances and restrictions marked the next 30 years. Increasingnumbers of corporations, universities, and municipalities grant domestic partnerbenefits, limited protection from employment discrimination, and hate crime lawsaimed to restrict harassment and violence. Conservative right-wing political groupsgalvanized unprecedented numbers in their ranks, largely by claiming gays andlesbians threatened the family structure, social conventions, and religious valuesthat many hold dear.

The most significant legal victory for the gay and lesbian community was theSupreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which overturnedthe sodomy laws protected by the same Court’s 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision.Lawrence and Garner v. Texas will have implications ranging far beyond the rarelyenforced sodomy laws, as the Bowers ruling was used to support discriminatorypolicies against gays and lesbians in areas as wide ranging as child custody, housing,employment, and health care.

While the fates of gay men and lesbians are tied together through discriminatorylaws and cultural attitudes, as well as some shared community, their experiences,sense of identification, and sustaining social structures are often quite distinct. Muchmore so than gay men, lesbians were likely to come out later in life, identify asbisexual, or return to romantic involvement with men. Lesbians in contemporaryAmerica are much more likely to live in rural communities and noncoastal statesthan gay men. The women who did follow the demographic tendency of gay men

88 GENDER ROLES

to migrate to major urban centers live outside of the gay neighborhoods, in thesuburbs and surrounding towns. Their main connection to the lesbian communityis not public gay space but rather the social institutions of the women’s movement,including bookstores, athletic leagues, and informal networks. The power of het-erosexism and homophobia link gay men and lesbians more than any inherentcommonality.

The issue of rape in the gay community is a sensitive one. Though lesbians haveworked to end domestic and sexual violence against women since the feministmovement targeted the issue in the 1970s, the lesbian community has struggled todeal with women-on-woman violence. Mythic gender roles make it hard to com-prehend the motives and behaviors of violent women. These ideas work against gaymen as well, framing gay rape as an act perpetuated by gay men against unwillingheterosexuals, rather than the much more typical situation of heterosexual menattacking gay men. Like the lesbian community, the gay male community, defendingitself against the violence aimed at it by heterosexuals, has been slow to look at theabusive behaviors of its own members. See also: Gender Roles; Homosexual Rape;Male Rape.

Suggested Reading: John D’Emilio, The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics,and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002); Urvashi Vaid, Virtual Equality:The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (New York: Anchor Books, 1995).

JENNIFER MANION

GENDER ROLES. Gender is a term that entered into the discussion of humansexuality in the mid-twentieth century. It was introduced by John Money to describethe difference between male and masculinity or female and femininity. Gender wasdefined as the constellation of mental and behavioral traits that to a greater orlesser degree differ between males and female, regardless of how those differencesmight arise. Children, at least as soon as they begin to talk, are known to establisha gender identity distinguishing themselves from the opposite sex. Although theyunderstand a gender identity early on, they do not necessarily have a gender con-stancy, and a little girl could imagine she might later be a boy, or vice versa. Theoverwhelming majority of children, however, ultimately develop a gender identityconsistent with their biological sex.

Gender role refers to the traits and characteristic expected of males and femalesin a particular society. This, at least partly, is a process of development, a socialconstruction, in which individuals incorporate the behaviors and characteristics ofa culturally defined gender role into their own personalities. Both women and menhave departed, in some cases quite radically, from the gender roles of 100 yearsago. Definitions of gender role vary not only in time periods but from society tosociety.

Gender role socialization occurs throughout childhood and adolescence as thechild is influenced by parents and family, peer groups, and institutions such asschools. Girls in the past were usually encouraged to be more nurturing than boys,while boys have been inculcated to be self-reliant. Father and sons have tended tohave more rough-and-tumble play than fathers have with their daughters. Boys aretold big boys don’t cry, while girls are permitted to do so.

Individuals, however, vary to the extent in which they incorporate the expectedbehaviors into their own personalities, and they may accept or reject them outright,

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or incorporate some of both into their gender role. In some cases, individuals seem-ingly develop two separate personae, as those transvestites do who believe thatcross-dressing allows them to express their feminine side more easily.

Some of the more militant early feminists believed that gender role was entirelya social construct. They urged parents to modify the way they treated their childrenby avoiding stereotypical attitudes and play activities. While there were some suc-cesses reported, most parents found that their children, in spite of their efforts,stuck to stereotypical toy preferences and activities. Still there have been societalchanges, as witnessed by the growth of women’s athletics programs in schools andcolleges. Active participation in sports, formerly one of the distinguishing charac-teristics of boys, have become much more common to both sexes.

One of the difficulties that parents had in making a gender-neutral environmentis due to the fact that they are not the only ones involved in inculcating genderattitudes in children. Television and peer groups are at least as influential, if notmore influential, and as society changes, so do education and gender roles.

All that can be said for certain is that the development of gender characteristics,including gender role, is probably multifactorial, and something that is not fullyunderstood. The most active efforts in the past to create new gender roles andidentities have involved intersex children and those who accidentally lost part oftheir genitals in early childhood. Challenges to surgical intervention in the past haveled to challenges by adult intersex individuals, as well as by those whose genitalswere surgically modified. Gender roles are certainly less restricted than they werein the immediate past, but what the ultimate result will be is still not clear, sinceany final answers are still lacking.

Those crossing gender lines are particularly vulnerable to rape in the UnitedStates, where the macho culture is hostile to them. Many males regard effeminategay men, butch lesbians, and transgender individuals as challenges to their mas-culinity. It is part of the popular male folklore in large sections of American societythat a lesbian could be “cured” by meeting a real man. This also seems to be thecase with individuals who are discovered to be transgendered. In the case of effem-inate males, the belief that they are asking for penetration is enough for some torape them. In this sense, rape can perhaps be justified in the rapist’s mind as essen-tial for the preservation of society. It keeps women in their place and prevents anychallenge to what macho men regard as the proper order in society. See also: Gaysand Lesbians.

Suggested Reading: J. Calapinto, As Nature Made Him (New York: HarperCollins, 2000);J.S. Hyde, Psychology of Gender: Advances through Meta-Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hop-kins University Press, 1986); G.P. Knight, R.A. Fabes, and D.A. Higgins, “Concerns aboutDrawing Casual Inferences from Meta-Analyses: An Example in the Study of Gender Dif-ferences in Aggression,” Psychological Bulletin 119 (1996): 410–421; John Money and AnkeEhrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy & Girl (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972);Kenneth J. Zucker, “Intersexuality and Gender Identity Differentiation,” Annual Review ofSex Research 10 (1999): 1–69.

VERN L. BULLOUGH

GENOCIDE. According to the 1948 Convention on genocide (78 U.N.T.S. 277)in force since 1951, this “crime of crimes” can be committed by killing membersof a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, causing serious bodily or mental

90 GENOCIDE

harm to those members, deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculatedto bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, or imposing measuresintended to prevent births or even by forcibly transferring children of the group toanother group. To reach the level that becomes necessary for the acts to be qualifiedas genocide, they must be performed with intent to destroy the group, totally orpartially. Nowadays, genocide, whose definition has become part of customary in-ternational law and an imperative norm, is one of the crimes under the scope ofthe recently created International Criminal Court. According to its particular char-acteristics, it may be committed not only during hostilities in an armed conflict butalso in times of peace.

The definition of genocide requires the identification of two elements that arecentral to its legal nature: on the one hand, the objective aspect (actus reus) con-sisting of the practical commission of the material acts; on the other, the subjectiveor moral aspect of the offense (mens rea), which is translated as the specific inten-tion—dolus specialis—behind the facts.

Since the process of destruction of a target group is expressly not limited tophysical extermination, sexual assaults could be also sometimes regarded as geno-cide. Among the various sex crimes that may be considered genocide, if these con-ditions are met, rape is one of the most widespread. Rape is broadly conceived, incontemporary jurisprudence, as the sexual penetration of the victim’s vagina,mouth, or anus by any body part or object, generally committed by force, threat,coercion, or other unlawful conduct. However, in spite of its gravity, it was onlyin the Statutes of the International Tribunals from Yugoslavia and Rwanda thatsome of the gender-oriented attacks committed against women were first explicitlyincluded and punished. In these ad hoc courts, however, rape is only dealt with asa crime against humanity.

Nevertheless, and even if legal instruments do not explicitly state so, it is clearthat forced penetration, resulting intentionally or unintentionally in the death ofthe victim, may fall under the scope of genocide, if it becomes part of a systematicplan with the ulterior motive of destroying the group to which that victim belonged.Rape can only be an offense described as genocide if it takes place in the contextof a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against the group, or if it coulditself effect such destruction.

Some publicists agree that sexual violence should be included in the categoriesof actions that may constitute genocide. As far as the protected groups are con-cerned, the Rwandan Tribunal has mentioned—referring to the local massacre in1994—that the definition of the crime should be extended and interpreted asincluding other similar groups, as long as they are stable. Even if women may notform a protected group, genocidal rape is possible every time the social structureof a community is broken based on arguments of ethnic cleansing; the impositionof measures intended to prevent births of a particular group, in fact, is clearly oneof the behaviors that constitute genocide. It is possible to affirm that systematic,violent, or repeated rapes committed against a specific sector of the population (evenif only a single member of the protected group is harmed) may be considered agenocidal act; the explanation often found for this focuses on the fact that it isdemonstrated that sexual violence causes both serious bodily and mental harm tothose who suffer it. See also: Bosnia-Herzegovina; War Crimes.

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Suggested Reading: Kelly D. Askin, War Crimes against Women: Prosecution in Interna-tional War Crimes Tribunals (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, M. Nijhoff Publishers,1997); Dorean Koenig and Kelly D. Askin, Women and International Human Rights Law(Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1999); L. Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in theTwentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982); Catharine A. MacKinnon,“Rape, Genocide and Women’s Human Rights,” Harvard Women’s Law Journal 17 (1994):5–16; N. Robinson, The Genocide Convention: A Commentary (New York: Institute ofJewish Affairs, 1960).

EMILIANO J. BUIS

GENOVESE, KITTY (1935–1964). While 38 witnesses ignored her screams forhelp, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was raped and stabbed to death in a case thatbecame symbolic of the refusal of Americans to get involved. Genovese, a bar man-ager, had just ended her shift and returned to her Kew Gardens, Queens, New YorkCity apartment at 3:15 a.m. on March 13, 1964. Genovese locked her car doorand began the 20-foot walk to her apartment. She immediately noticed WinstonMoseley, a married business-machine operator with no criminal record, walkingquickly toward her. Genovese ran, but Moseley caught up to her underneath astreet light at the end of the parking lot and stabbed her with a knife. Genovesescreamed for help, with her shrieks heard by several residents of nearby buildings.One man opened his window, observed the struggle below, and shouted at theattacker. Moseley walked away, and the man closed his window. Genovese, bleed-ing heavily, staggered to her building and held the concrete wall. Five minutes later,Moseley returned to stab her again. Genovese screamed again. Lights in the build-ings went on again, but no one called the police. Moseley ran away but returneda third time at 3:25 a.m. and followed a trail of blood to find Genovese. He cutoff her bra and underwear, raped her, stole $49 from her purse, and fatally stabbedher before fleeing. The entire event lasted 32 minutes. The one call made to thepolice came after Genovese’s death, and police arrived within 2 minutes. To anation shocked by their apathy, Genovese’s neighbors explained that they had notwanted to get involved. Moseley, who simply wanted to kill someone, received adeath sentence that was later reduced to life imprisonment.

Suggested Reading: A.M. Rosenthal, Thirty-eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

CARYN E. NEUMANN

GEOGRAPHIC PROFILING. Also called criminal geographic targeting (CGT),geographic profiling, invented by Dr. Kim Rossmo, is a mathematical-algorithmtechnique for calculating the most probable area of residence of serial criminals.Although initially dismissed as overly optimistic, it has earned legitimacy and re-spect after helping the police solve a number of formidable cases of serial crimes.

Geographic profiling is based on the assumption that serial criminals do not actin entirely random ways. Whether they are engaged in serial arson, robbery, orrape, criminals follow several fairly specific principles. First, to protect their ano-nymity, criminals keep a “buffer zone” in their immediate neighborhood, wherethey tend not to operate. On the other hand, they do not venture very far fromhome either, because too great a distance from the base reduces their sense ofsecurity.

92 GLEN RIDGE (NJ) RAPE CASE

This latter tendency is further specified by a proportion principle saying that thegraver the crime, the farther from the base it is planned. Believing these facts todefine any offender’s geographic “modus operandi,” Rossmo and his team trans-lated them into a computer algorithm whose function is to compare the locationpoints of crime sites. The algorithm uses geographic coordinates fed into the com-puter to draw the so-called “jeopardy surface”—a region on the police map wherethe offender most likely resides.

This technique is most helpful in solving crimes believed to have been perpetratedby the same individual, such as an elusive serial rapist, or in single crimes afterwhich the offender leaves traces in many other locations, for example, by makingtaunting phone calls to the police. Profiling narrows down the investigation areaand, with a reduced number of suspects, makes it possible to examine DNA sam-ples, something that would be difficult without the investigative focus enabled bygeographic profiling. Among its great advantages is its ability to locate even verysystematic offenders who took great pains to cover their traces and not to leave adiscernible pattern. One of the most spectacular achievements of geographic pro-filing was its role in apprehending the notorious South Side rapist who for morethan a decade terrorized women in Lafayette, Louisiana. See also: DNA Collectionand Evidence; Profiling; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists.

Suggested Reading: Bruce Grierson, “The Hound of the Data Points,” Popular Science(April 2003), http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,435555,00.html.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

GLEN RIDGE (NJ) RAPE CASE. After baseball practice on March 1, 1989, 13Glen Ridge, New Jersey, athletes gathered at the home of twins Kevin and KyleScherzer. Joining them at the popular basement hangout was their former classmate,a 17-year-old mentally retarded girl. Unlike many previous get-togethers, this onehad a specific purpose. One of the boys began to take off his pants. Six of themlooked around nervously and left. Of the remaining 7, several watched while theothers sexually assaulted the girl, fondling her breasts, coercing acts of oral sex,and penetrating her vagina with a broom and baseball bat.

The victim, described as having the intellectual and emotional maturity of asecond-grader, also loved sports. Despite her transfer to a nearby school, she con-tinued to play basketball for Glen Ridge High. Particularly fond of one of the boys,she was lured to the basement with a promise that he would meet her later thatday. She mistakenly believed she was finally being accepted as one of the “jocks.”Following the assault, she returned to the baseball field and anxiously paced, wait-ing for the date who would not appear. Eventually she returned home and, asinstructed, told no one about her basement encounter.

Word spread quickly, however. The group bragged about their exploits andplanned a repeat “performance,” this one to be videotaped. Perhaps some residentsof Glen Ridge—a small, upper-middle-class suburb, with attractive homes and well-manicured lawns—would not be surprised. The boys had a long, well-documentedhistory of sexual misconduct. One of them masturbated openly at school, whileothers had had sex without telling their partners they were being observed. Still,many wondered if the rumors were true. Several weeks passed before a reluctantstudent informed school officials.

The story broke nationwide two months later: Five popular New Jersey athletes

GLEN RIDGE (NJ) RAPE CASE 93

were arrested for raping a mentally retarded teen. Two more arrests followed. Ul-timately, four faced charges of first-degree rape. All were freed on bail until thetrial began in 1992. The widely publicized, six-month courtroom drama yieldedfour convictions. Found guilty of a misdemeanor, Bryant Grober received probationand community service. The Scherzer twins and Christopher Archer received prisonsentences of up to 15 years, although Kyle Scherzer’s sentence was later reduced.In a move that provoked a national outcry, the judge allowed the boys to remainout of jail until they exhausted their appeals. In 1997, the convictions were upheld,and the boys—by now, young men—entered a campus-style youth correctionalfacility. They could be assigned to this type of facility because they were first-timeoffenders and because the judge was able to classify them as “young-adult-offenders.” At the time of the rape, Archer was almost 17, and the Scherzer twinswere 18.

Kyle Scherzer was released in December 1999; Christopher Archer was releasedin August 2001, and Kevin Scherzer was released in November 2002. In October2003, a federal appeals court granted their lawyers permission to proceed with anew appeal. Although they are no longer in custody, a favorable ruling (based onfaulty trial procedures) would help to erase the stigma of conviction and preventthem from having to register as sex offenders under Megan’s Law.

The events of March 1989 have been chronicled by two books and a televisionmovie. Many observers hold the town partly responsible for this crime, witnessingthe widespread support for their heroes of the playing field. They believe an ex-aggerated emphasis on sports, coupled with a refusal to hold young boys account-able for their actions, fostered a “boys will be boys” attitude, creating the backdropfor the Glen Ridge rape. See also: Athletes; Foreign-Object Rape; Gang Rape; Gen-der Roles; Voyeurism.

Suggested Reading: Peter Laufer, A Question of Consent: Innocence and Complicity in theGlen Ridge Rape Case (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1994); Bernard Lefkowitz, The GlenRidge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1997).

CHRISTINE CLARK ZEMLA

H

HALE, SIR MATTHEW (1609–1676). A renowned seventeenth-century Englishjudge and legal scholar, Matthew Hale is remembered today primarily as the authorof The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736), a pathbreaking survey of the lawand procedure of capital offenses. It was here that Hale set forth his influentialsummation of the development of English rape law.

Within the U.S. legal system, Hale’s influence can be seen most clearly in tworealms: first, in the suspicious stance toward female complainants generally andsecond, in the assertion of the legal impossibility of rape in marriage. While termingrape “a most detestable crime,” Hale famously warned that “it is an accusationeasily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the partyaccused, tho never so innocent.” Hale’s assertion of traditional stereotypes of gen-dered behavior shifted attention away from rape’s actual victims to underscoremen’s supposed vulnerability to unscrupulous women, thus reorienting the locus ofinjury to the hypothetically wronged male. Versions of this caveat, often verbatim,appeared in jury instructions issued in jurisdictions throughout the country untilthe late twentieth century, when they were gradually eliminated.

Hale was also the principal expositor of the common law’s marital rape exemp-tion. Drawing on the notion of implied consent to spousal intercourse, he observedthat “the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawfulwife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given upherself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.” Marriage wastherefore a contract, an essential component of which was the wife’s agreement toperform sexual services when called upon to do so. Hale was the authority mostwidely invoked by U.S. courts in support of the historical foundation for the spousalexemption, which remained in force until the 1970s, when feminists inauguratedthe movement for rape law reform.

Hale’s principal legacy for rape history lies in these two statements, which to-gether served both to articulate and perpetuate cultural suspicion regardingwomen’s allegations of sexual abuse within and outside of marriage. See also: Rape

HISPANICS/LATINOS 95

History in the United States: Seventeenth Century; Rape History in the UnitedStates: Eighteenth Century; Rape History in the United States: Nineteenth Century;Rape History in the United States: Twentieth Century; Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736; Fac-simile of the first edition, introduced by P.R. Glazebrook, Abington, United Kingdom: Pro-fessional Books, 1987); [J.M.R.], “Sir Matthew Hale,” in The Dictionary of NationalBiography, vol. 8, ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee (1908–1909; reprint, London:Oxford University Press, 1949–1950).

LISA CARDYN

HISPANICS/LATINOS. The terms Latino and Hispanic are commonly used inthe United States to refer to people of Latin American, Caribbean, Mexican, orSpanish ancestry. These words are ethnic labels that do not signify nationality, asthere are more than 23 nations from which people identified as such may come.When these words are used to refer to groups of people living within what is nowconsidered to be the geopolitical borders of the United States, there is generallysome assumption that people share certain social characteristics and cultural as-pects. Broadly speaking, Latino culture is visible through artifacts, language, reli-gion, customs, clothing, and foods. And typically, when we think of culture, werecognize that certain groups possess common beliefs, values, attitudes, and waysof knowing and learning.

Historically, the U.S. government has used the term Hispanic as an official des-ignator to refer to people from these regions, who have the right to some type oflegal residency in the United States. More recent censuses, however, have employedboth Latino and Hispanic as ethnic labels for members of these groups. But thepeople themselves vary in their preference for Latino over Hispanic, and vice versa,and many reject overarching labeling, since the experience of Puerto Ricans, forexample, differs from the experience of Nicaraguans, Argentines, or Spaniards.

The U.S. Census Bureau for 2000 reports that more than 35 million Latinos/Hispanics live within the borders of the United States, making up about 12.5 per-cent of the total U.S. population of 248,709,873 people. Though Mexican Ameri-cans make up the largest group with some 20 million inhabitants within the UnitedStates, there are also sizable populations of Puerto Ricans (nearly 3.5 million) andCubans (1.2 million). Recent immigration has also brought Latinos from the Do-minican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Ecuador, and other Centraland South American countries (approximately 10 million people).

Latinas have a long history of having suffered sexual violence. It is well docu-mented that Spanish soldiers abducted and raped Indigenous women during theirconquest and subjugation of Amerindian peoples and their lands. Often, the Spanishphrase la violacion de las Indias, or “the rape/violation of the Indies/female Indi-ans,” is used to express how, through European men’s sexual violence, most ofwhat is now known as Latin America and the Caribbean and the people whoinhabited it fell under Spanish control and domination. The word violacion carriesthe double meaning of rape/violation, and the feminine phrase las Indias can meaneither the West Indies or Indigenous, Amerindian women. One historical study ofthe eighteenth-century Spanish expansion into California highlights the tension cre-ated between the Spanish Catholic Church and the Spanish army, precisely becauseof the sexual violence and rape of Californian Indians by Spanish soldiers. Accord-

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ing to the author of the study, Antonia Castaneda, clergymen wrote to Spanishgovernment officials about their difficulties in convincing the Indigenous populationto convert to Catholicism, when Spanish soldiers were stealing Indigenous womenand raping them. Feminists argue that as a result of the Western tradition in whichwomen are seen as belonging to (in the sense of property and territory) their fathersand husbands, wartime abducting and raping of “enemy women” is symbolic ofboth physical domination of the land and of the group inhabiting it, as well as theemasculation of “enemy men” who are supposed to be able to protect what is theirs.

Today, as is the case for women of other ethnic and racial backgrounds, Latinascontinue to be victimized by sexual violence. Though there has not been a greatdeal of research on sexual violence and Latina women in the United States, muchof the literature that does exist suggests that Latina women are less likely to disclosesexual violence than their non-Latina counterparts. However, the data analyzedthus far cannot locate the reason for the disparity in reporting rates between womenof different ethnic groups. In other words, it is not clear whether (1) Latina womensuffer less sexual violence than women from other groups, (2) Latina women arenot as inclined as women from other social and ethnic groups to consider certaincoercive sexual acts to be acts of sexual violence, or (3) Latina women are morereluctant than are other women to disclose sexual violence. When the last tworeasons are given to explain the phenomenon of Latinas’ low reporting rates, re-searchers also implicate Latino culture as prohibiting women from speaking aboutsex in general, let alone sexual violence. Presumably for Latina women, all thingssexual are thought to be sociocultural taboos. In some studies, aspects believed tobe unique to Latino culture are put forth as explanations for Latinas’ reticence onthe sexual violence. Such cultural attributes include familism, or the importanceLatinos supposedly put on the family and its ability to give lifelong, transgenera-tional support to its loyal members, and what are often assumed to be the rigidlyprescribed and dichotomous gender roles for men and women of machismo andMarianismo, respectively. Machismo is the cultural concept that men have the re-sponsibility of protecting and providing for their family, and Marianismo is theexpectation that women are to emulate the Virgin Mary, a sacred mother whoknows how to endure suffering for the good of others. But some experts suggestmore systemic or social reasons for Latinas not reporting, such as their low socio-economic status in the United States and their sensitivity as women of color to thestructural and racist biases within U.S. prosecutorial and U.S. law enforcementagencies that will subject Latino men to unequal and unfair treatment as comparedto their Anglo counterparts. See also: Native Americans.

Suggested Reading: Antonia Castaneda, “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies ofConquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” in Buildingwith Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies, ed. Adela de la Torre and BeatrizPesquera (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 15–33; Ernesto de la Vega,“Considerations for Reaching the Latino Population with Sexuality and HIV/AIDS Infor-mation and Education,” SIECUS Report 18 (1990): 1–8; Georgiana Low and Kurt Organ-ista, “Latinas and Sexual Assault: Towards Culturally Sensitive Assessment andIntervention,” Journal of Multicultural Social Work 8 (2000): 131–157; Suzanne Oboler,Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)presentation in the United States(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Luciana Ramos-Lira, Mary Koss, andNancy Felipe-Russo, “Mexican American Women’s Definitions of Rape and Sexual Abuse,”Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 21 (1999): 236–265; Shonna Trinch, “Managing

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Euphemism and Transcending Taboos: Negotiating the Meaning of Sexual Assault in Lati-nas’ Narratives of Domestic Violence,” Text 21 (2001): 567–610.

SHONNA L. TRINCH

HIV/AIDS. Sometime in the mid-twentieth century, the human immunodeficiencyvirus (HIV) took hold and soon developed into the global epidemic of acquiredimmunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Rape is one of the methods by which this fataldisease is transmitted. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated that 43million people were HIV-positive, with 70 percent of those living in sub-SaharanAfrica. AIDS remains the deadliest of the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),which include gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, crabs, genital warts, pelvic inflam-matory disease, and scabies. While earlier hopes for a cure have faded, efforts tohalt the further spread of AIDS through various preventive measures have beencrippled by engrained fears, prejudices, and misconceptions regarding sex, gender,and sexuality. Scientists now believe that Congolese chimpanzees contracted a non-lethal form of the virus from eating monkeys, and while the mechanisms wherebyit passed from nonhuman primates to humans remains unclear, the virus spreadthrough international travel, intravenous (IV) drug use, and blood transfusion. De-spite these facts, conspiracy theories linking AIDS to everything from the CentralIntelligence Agency to polio vaccines, have persisted. Because of conspiracy theoriesand compulsions to “blame” AIDS on unpopular or socially disadvantaged groupssuch as gay men, racial minorities, the poor, and women, most organizations haveremained reluctant to name rape as a crucial means of transmitting AIDS, althoughit clearly is.

In part, since testing methods and the nature of the disease complicate linkingexposure to rape, the Centers for Disease Control lists “heterosexual sex” ratherthan rape as the main model of transmission, obscuring how rape, the most graphicform of sexist domination, is not only a devastating crime but also a death sentencefor millions of female victims of this “femicide.” However, statistics from SouthAfrica, which has one of the highest rates of rape and HIV infection and AIDS inthe world, prove the correlation. There, where men usually refuse to wear condoms,and cultural mores normalize male infidelity, prostitution, and the belief that sexwith a virgin “cures” AIDS, Human Rights Watch reports that 50 percent of school-girls endure sexual assault. The presence of untreated STDS, which often cause opensores and lesions, worsens women’s already heightened vulnerability to HIV infec-tion. The World Health Organization estimates a 30 percent higher risk of HIVand STD transmission through rape than consensual sex, since the force involvedin rape can often lead to cuts and abrasions but also because women are terrifiedof seeking treatment after a rape, especially if the perpetrator is an acquaintance orfamily member. In sixteen African countries, 10 percent of the population is nowinfected. In Rwanda, rape increased dramatically during and after the genocide in1994, and now 22 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 29 are HIV-positive. Some African governments, worried about provoking the hostility of men,who too often regard rape as a birthright and a “natural need,” avoid honest dis-cussion about how AIDS, which can be termed biological sexism, is spread becauseof the violent, irresponsible, and domineering behavior of heterosexual men. How-ever, their human rights violations have literally become the deadliest virus in theworld.

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Africa might only appear especially bleak because that continent has monitoringsystems lacking in other parts of the developing world. For example, East Asia hasan enormous sex trade, intravenous drug use, economic instability, traditional sex-ism, and mobile populations. The area has probably already witnessed an explosionof HIV/AIDS that most governments, indifferent to the plight of women and ter-rified of losing Western economic investment, minimize or deny. The same holdstrue for China, whose government recently admitted to 800,000 HIV infections,even though the real figures are much higher. Like most other developing countries,the Chinese government will soon be forced to choose between denial and themaintenance of the sexist status quo, on the one hand, and economic collapse, onthe other. The Indian subcontinent, like the nations of the former Soviet Union,face similar choices regarding whether or not they will eliminate the male sexualprivilege that, in the form of wanton rape and blaming and stigmatizing womenthey have infected with HIV, currently drives the epidemic.

Women are the predominant but not exclusive victims of rape, which, in variousmanifestations, currently drives the global AIDS epidemic and that has resulted,whether directly or indirectly, in the “feminization” of this fatal disease. Rape hasalways occurred in prisons and juvenile detention facilities, but the problem hasworsened because of overcrowding and understaffing. The endemic dishonesty ofstate and federal governments over nonconsensual sex in prison now makes themaccomplices in attempted murder. In the United States, 2 million now serve behindbars and millions more pass through each year, and HIV is 5 to 10 times higherthan in the general population. Male rape victims are usually young, nonviolent,first-time offenders seen as “new meat.” Often the targeted victims must acceptsexual slavery and prostitution. As in the developing world, where police officersoften rape women for “misconduct,” prison staff use rape as punishment and sel-dom hold perpetrators accountable. In contrast to stereotypes, heterosexual mencommit most rapes against other men, which reveals that “macho” cultures con-ceptualize sex as power. Male survivors often feel like they have been stripped oftheir “manhood” and remove the stigma associated with homosexual and femaleidentity by getting their revenge on women and children. In this fashion, the cycleof sexism, homophobia, rape, and HIV/AIDS perpetuates itself.

More than 20 years into the AIDS epidemic, the picture looks far worse thanmost would have predicted 10 years ago. Ironically, the spread of AIDS to women,who are now the subpopulation most affected by the disease, has made the prev-alence of rape impossible to ignore. It has also made evident that male sexist dom-ination is not merely a bad idea but also a literally deadly matter that is eradicatingentire cultures, halting economic progress, and posing a direct threat to the contin-uance of human civilization. In rural Africa, the sight of dying young women andorphaned children has become commonplace. In South Africa more than 8,500women under the age of 18 were raped in the first six months of 1999. Unlessdramatic action aimed at ending the cultural, economic, and political disenfran-chisement of women does not occur in the near future, the damage already donewill pale in comparison with what lies ahead. The advent of the AIDS epidemicnow means that rape can no longer be silenced, denied, or minimized if culturesaround the globe hope to survive. See also: African Women and Girls; Prison Rape;Trafficking in Women and Children.

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Suggested Reading: “The Basics on Rape Behind Bars,” Stop Prisoner Rape, http://www.spr.org; “HIV/AIDS,” Human Rights Reports, 2003, http://www.hrw.org; “HIV/AIDS,”World Health Organization, Annual Reports 2003, http://www.who.int/en/.

CORINNE E. BLACKMER

HOLOCAUST. See Ethnic Cleansing; Genocide; Nazis; War Crimes.

HOMOEROTICISM. Homoeroticism is a practice that holds the same-sex rela-tionship as both spiritually and sexually most satisfying. In common language it isoften synonymously used with “homosexuality.” As a scientific discourse today,homoeroticism has been a subject of gay and lesbian studies.

In ancient Greece the homoerotic relationship was highly regarded as a true spir-itual connection of men, first as minds and then as bodies, where older men werepatrons of younger boys in their social initiation. As such, homoeroticism was con-sidered more than a mere sexual gratification of bodily needs but rather a rite ofpassage and spiritual growth.

Homoerotic relationships, while never extinct from Western social life, were cer-tainly hushed by society in later history. In many instances, homosexuals wereseverely persecuted, because they were wrongly understood as mentally, andtherefore morally, unstable human beings. Sigmund Freud, the founder of modernpsychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, caused a revivalin the scientific interest in the issues of homosexuality in males and females.

In a homoerotic relationship, partners face the same problems of violence, hate,and power that are often the leading forces in rape cases among heterosexuals.Violence can be exercised by homosexuals upon members of the same community,with the underlying issues of dominance and power between the “strong” and the“weak” parties in the conflict. On the other hand, because homoerotic relationshipsare not accepted by everyone, a rape can be committed by an ordinarily heterosex-ual perpetrator upon a homosexual victim, as a hate crime as well as a sexual one.See also: Homosexual Rape; Male Rape.

Suggested Reading: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Tenth Anniversary Issue (London: Rout-ledge, 1999); Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender, Politics and the Constructionof Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 2001); bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Repre-sentation (London: Routledge, 1994); Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World:An Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1998).


HOMOSEXUAL RAPE. Homosexual rape refers to coerced, nonconsensual sexbetween members of the same sex. This term has been used mistakenly to describethe sexual orientation of either the perpetrator or the victim. This is particularlythe case for male rape, when a male perpetrator of another male is labeled homo-sexual because of the homosexual nature of the act. Studies have shown that het-erosexual men, not homosexual men, usually perpetuate stranger rape betweenmen. Though members of the opposite sex rape homosexual men and women, thisdoes not constitute homosexual rape. One of the reasons homosexual rape has beenharder to study and understand is that traditional definitions of rape do not easily

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lend themselves to same-sex situations. By defining rape as a sex act between peoplewithout freely given consent, legal systems can better address the range of sexualexperiences that mark individual lives. Research into the causes, occurrence, andconsequences of homosexual rape is minimal, but early findings have raised criticalquestions about the complex relationship between power, violence, gender roles,and sexuality.

Woman-to-woman sexual assault among strangers is still largely undocumented.That women can and do rape each other has been hard for many to believe. In aheterocentric, phallocentric society, even defining what constitutes sex between twowomen has been widely misunderstood outside of the lesbian community. Somebelieve sexual violence is a tool of patriarchy, the principle weapon with which menterrorize and control women, making it unlikely that women are capable of fillingthat role, or at least unclear why they would want to. The homosexual rape betweenwomen that is documented often occurs within a lesbian relationship. Homophobia,misinformation about lesbian sex, and disbelief that women hurt other women inrelationships all contribute to the general silence that characterizes this issue. Do-mestic violence and sexual assault service agencies rarely provide the support andinformation needed by female survivors of homosexual rape, perpetuating theirisolation and confusion.

Stranger rape between men is more common and better documented. ThroughoutAmerican history, forced sex between men was characterized as sodomy but notrape. Early studies of male-on-male rape employed a similar model of analysis asthat developed by feminists studying rape of women by men: Rape is about exertingpower, not about sexual desire. Following this, it was held that rape between menwas predominantly by heterosexual men against homosexual men. Gay men whocruise public places looking for casual sex partners are more susceptible to thesekinds of attacks. One reason for the predominance of stranger rape over acquain-tance rape between men was the focus of early studies—prisons, military, and othersingle-sexed but not explicitly gay situations. More recent studies focused on menin the gay community reveal a higher rate of rape between gay men than waspreviously thought. Male rape is dramatically underreported, by gay and straightmen alike. Gay men often expect that they will be blamed for being raped, or worseyet, accused of enjoying it. Studies confirm that when the victim of male rape ishomosexual, he is more likely to be blamed for the encounter than a heterosexualman in the same situation.

Sexual orientation is still an important variable to understanding the motivationsbehind and consequences of all forms of rape, including homosexual. Studies ofcollege-aged students show that gay men and lesbians are more likely victims ofsexual assault than their heterosexual counterparts. Sex is the significant factorwhen identifying the perpetrators—they are overwhelmingly male. Similarly,women are far more frequently raped than men. Perhaps one of the most interestingconclusions—or hypotheses—to this issue is the absence of a role for heterosexualwomen. Lesbian women who rape often rape their partners or ex-lovers—womenwho are gay and whom they know intimately. Heterosexual women do not userape as a means of tormenting or demonstrating power over lesbians, in the waythat men do. Though the label of sexual abuser or pervert is still used in politicalbattles against gays and lesbians, it has not affected gay women nearly to the extentit has plagued gay men. Survivors of sex crimes whose lives do not fit heterosexualnorms are regarded as having invited the unpleasant experience because of their

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own sexual deviance. Historically, consensual homosexual sex has been equatedwith other forms of nonconsensual sex. For centuries, homosexuality was listedside-by-side with bestiality, rape, and incest in the legal books. It might take anothercentury or two to undo this association. See also: Prison Rape.

Suggested Reading: Darren L. Burt and Lesley R. DeMello, “Attribution of Rape Blame asa Function of Victim Gender and Sexuality, and Perceived Similarity to the Victim,” Journalof Homosexuality 43.2 (May 2002): 39; Richie J. McMullen, Male Rape: Breaking theSilence on the Last Taboo (Boston: Gay Men’s Press, 1990); Damon Mitchell, RichardHirschman, and Gordon C. Nagayama Hall, “Attributions of Victim Responsibility, Pleas-ure, and Trauma in Male Rape,” Journal of Sex Research 36 (November 1999): 369; CherylBrown Travis, ed., Evolution, Gender, and Rape (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

JENNIFER MANION

HOSPITALS AND NURSING HOMES. Hospitalized patients and disabled resi-dents of long-term care facilities are dependent on health care providers for theirsafety. These special populations share a heightened risk of sexual assault due totheir physical condition, the effects of prescribed medications, and/or mental im-pairments. The American Hospital Association listed 5,801 registered hospitals inits annual survey, Hospital Statistics 2001. In 1999, there were over 16,700 nursinghomes providing either short-term convalescent care or long-term care for over 1.5million patients. As the baby boom generation moves into retirement, there will bea growing need for long-term care residential facilities.

Sexual assault in health care facilities is an opportunistic crime. Patients, em-ployees, and visitors have all been victims of sexual assault in hospitals and nursinghomes. The offenders may be anesthesiologists, gynecologists, nurses, pediatricians,psychiatrists, other employees, fellow patients, or trespassers. Throughout the twen-tieth century, responses by professional associations and licensing review boards tocomplaints of sexual misconduct by health care practitioners tended to be ineffec-tive. In 1983, Wisconsin became the first state to pass a law criminalizing profes-sional sexual misconduct. Malpractice insurance carriers responded by developingexclusion of coverage clauses for sexual exploitation by medical professionals andby supporting financial caps on damages that could be awarded to victims of sexualabuse by health care providers.

The International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety conducts an an-nual health care facility crime survey. Its first survey in 1987 revealed that manyhospitals were not tracking crime data. Several other factors make it difficult toobtain valid statistics on the frequency of sexual assaults in health care facilities. Apatient’s mental impairment and the absence of physical injury can make it difficultfor anyone to know that a sexual assault has occurred. Health care professionalsmay succumb to peer pressure by refusing to report a colleague’s sexual misconduct,discouraging patients from reporting sexual abuse or failing to impose effectivepenalties against offenders.

The medical consumer advocacy movement has successfully lobbied for saferconditions for patients in health care facilities. The Arc is a grassroots organizationthat supports the rights of the mentally retarded. The Accreditation Council forServices for the Mentally Retarded and Other Developmentally Disabled Personswas established in 1969. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Dec-laration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons in 1971, recognizing their right

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to protection from exploitation and abuse. Despite these measures, a national sur-vey in 1991 revealed widespread complaints of voyeurism, fondling, and rape inhospitals with general psychiatric units or special units for adolescents, substanceabusers, or elderly psychiatric patients.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)is the nation’s predominant accrediting body in health care. It began long-term careaccreditation in 1966. Elma Holder, a social worker, founded the National Citizens’Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR) in 1975. NCCNHR helped writethe Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1987, which regulates hownursing homes do business. OBRA established a Resident’s Bill of Rights for nursinghome patients, including the right to be free from physical and sexual abuse. Rel-atives of nursing home residents formed Nursing Home Monitors in 1995. Thisgroup supports “whistleblower” employees who lose their jobs for reporting nurs-ing home abuse. The Health Care Financing Administration, now called the Centersfor Medicare and Medicaid Services, first produced standardized national reportingof allegations of abuse and neglect in nursing homes in 1996.

The doctrine of “charitable immunity” once protected hospitals and similar in-stitutions from liability when their employees committed acts of sexual misconduct.Now, however, courts are acknowledging a special relationship between hospitalsand their patients, recognizing patients’ right to protection from sexual abuse whilethey are incapacitated. Unfortunately, conflict of interest can influence health careproviders to resist fixing the problems that lead to sexual abuse. In response tomore stringent compliance laws of recent years, corporate lobbyists are seekinglegislation to deregulate the nursing home industry and to limit medical malpracticeand nursing home liability claims. If successful, these efforts could weaken the en-forcement of federal quality standards for nursing homes and increase the vulner-ability of people least able to protect themselves. See also: Mental Disabilities,People with; Physicians and Medical Professionals.

Suggested Reading: Ann W. Burgess and Carol R. Hartman, Sexual Exploitation of Patientsby Health Professionals (New York: Praeger, 1986); General Accounting Office, NursingHomes: More Can Be Done to Protect Residents from Abuse, GAO-02-312 (Washington,DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, March 2002), http://www.gao.gov/newitems/do2312.pdf; Gary Ilminen, Consumer Guide to Long-Term Care (Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 1999); Pauline Trumpi, Doctors Who Rape: Malpractice and Misogyny (Rochester,VT: Schenkman Books, 1997).

BETTY J. GLASS

I

INCEST. Incest is the sexual abuse and rape of children by family members. Whilemany forms of incest undoubtedly exist, by far the most common is the father-daughter relationship. Although incest has probably existed for as long as humanhistory extends, the definition of incest and the social reactions to it have changedmarkedly over time. In preindustrial Europe, incest was primarily an ecclesiasticalcrime defined as unlawful marriage within prohibited degrees of consanguinity.Many historians believe that the modern definitions of incest only emerged in thenineteenth century, as conceptions of childhood and adolescence changed and asthe state increasingly intervened in family life.

Ancient Hebrew and Greek civilizations were among the first to leave documentsthat reveal an “incest taboo,” a social condemnation of sexual relations betweenfamily members. In medieval and early modern Europe, religious and political au-thorities defined incest primarily as unlawful marriage between blood relatives. Ec-clesiastical legislation gradually included all relations between family members untilthe seventh degree. By the ninth century, prohibitions against incest extended torelationships of consanguinity, affinity, and even spiritual relationships created bygodparenthood during baptism. Religious reformers in the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries were among the first to express anxieties about uncontrolled sex-uality, but their concern did not stem from a desire to protect the child from abuse.Social and religious reformers detested incest because they believed sexual activitiesbetween close family members were dangerous and disorderly—the act transgressedthe God-ordained distinction between human and animal life. One seventeenth-century journal, for instance, matter-of-factly records instances where adults fon-dled the genitals of a baby—the future King Louis XIII of France.

Before the latter half of the nineteenth century, incestuous activities were rarelyvigorously pursued by authorities, most likely out of an aversion to interfere in thedomestic exercise of paternal authority. In both Europe and the United States, casescame to the attention of authorities because the victims had become pregnant bytheir fathers, stepfathers, or uncles. Once in court, the law was not on the victim’s

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side. Judges did not comprehend the helplessness of the incest victim, who wascaught between devotion to a parent or guardian and the blatant disregard for thechild’s well-being. Preindustrial science claimed that a female could only becomepregnant after achieving orgasm, and thus pregnancy was for the judges a sign ofconsensual sex. A failure to immediately report the incident also was received skep-tically by the judges. Nineteenth-century judges in the southern United States werewary of incest accusations; they required explicit proof of sexual activity beforereaching a decision. Sentences were generally light. While some perpetrators in Eu-rope could be punished by death, most were publicly whipped and banished fromtheir local towns.

Most historians note a dramatic shift in society’s reaction to incest between 1880and 1914, in both the United States and Europe. Although scholars cannot measurechanges in incest activity itself, they argue that a more concerted effort was underway to protect children from sexual crimes. Western culture began to emphasizethe innocence of childhood and increasingly worked to protect children from socialevils. Governments became concerned about future generations of citizens. Theyinstituted public schooling and adopted legislation designed to protect children.Children were perceived for the first time as having a right to protection. Volunteerorganizations staffed by middle-class reformers emerged, such as the New YorkSociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Reformers lobbied governmentfor child protection laws and established networks of inspectors and caseworkersalongside the police force. In Britain, their work resulted in raising the age of con-sent from 12 to 16 years in 1885, and specific laws against incest finally emergedin the 1908 Punishment against Incest Act.

Prosecution remained extremely difficult. The nature of the crime made it difficultto identify. Spouses and close relatives hesitated to lodge complaints. Informalneighborhood enforcement often proved just as effective. Men who were identifiedas perpetrators by their peers were publicly humiliated and even beaten. Reformerssought, above all, to protect the morality of young girls, believing that social prob-lems resulted from crimes committed against women that ruined their sexual virtue.Most volunteers were social elites who considered incest a problem of the poor,instigated by close living quarters and unscrupulous morals. Despite the new con-cern for the children, the volunteer societies were ill prepared to care for them.Most victims were placed in orphanages or child reform schools with juvenile de-linquents.

Historians agree that the social concern and awareness about incest generallywaned between the 1920s and the 1960s. Professional case workers, influenced bythe psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, questioned the frequency of the crime and the vic-tim’s motivations for coming forward. Indeed, many accused the victim of seducingthe parent. General perceptions of sexual crimes were reconstituted as a problemof old men unfamiliar with their female victims. Social workers concentrated lesson crimes within the home than on delinquency and its consequences outside of thehome.

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, awareness of incest and sexualabuse in general reemerged. Feminist groups, in particular, began speaking outagainst family violence in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1975 to 1985, incest accu-sations climbed astronomically, among all socioeconomic levels and ethnic groups.Social workers concentrated their attention on prevention of the crime througheducational programs in the school systems. Psychiatrists had placed far more em-

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phasis on understanding the mental problems and disorders among the abusers. Bythe 1990s, professionals helped victims recall earlier crimes committed against themthat they had expunged from their memory because of the trauma involved. Seealso: Child Rape.

Suggested Reading: Leroy Ashby, Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abusein American History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997); Linda Gordon, Heroes of TheirOwn Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston 1880–1960 (New York:Viking Press, 1988); Louise A. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England (NewYork: Routledge, 2000).

CHRISTOPHER CORLEY

INDENTURED SERVITUDE. In U.S. history, the system of indentured servitudebegan in the early seventeenth century when the Virginia Company recruited andtransported English laborers to Jamestown. Servants who immigrated to Americaworked, according to the terms of an indenture contract, for four to seven yearsfor their master and/or mistress. In exchange for servants’ labors, employers paidfor their travel expenses to America, agreed to maintain them during their term ofservice, and provided “freedom dues” upon the successful completion of the con-tract period. Though the system originated in Virginia, it quickly spread throughoutthe British colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historians es-timate that as many as one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants to the Britishcolonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries arrived as indentured servants.Most indentured servants were young single males; however, colonial recruitersincreasingly targeted female servants to balance the sex ratio in the Chesapeake andto provide much-needed labor within planter households. By the mid-seventeenthcentury, one-third of the indentured servants arriving in America were women; mostwere under the age of 30.

Although indentured servitude was considered a labor system rather than a formof personal bondage (slavery), in reality the distinctions blurred. Both servants andslaves were considered dependents within the master’s household, and both groupswere subject to physical and sexual exploitation. Servants were not permitted tomarry without the consent of their master or mistress. In the case of female servants,consent was rarely given, as marriage and potential pregnancies would complicatepower relations and jeopardize the labor agreement. Servants also had little controlover the conditions of their labor; treatment varied according to one’s geographicregion, the nature of the work expected of the servant, and the character of themaster or mistress. Servants were subject to discipline from masters, including cor-poral punishment. A master or mistress could also sell the servant to another“owner” without the servant’s consent. Servants who ran away, became pregnant,or otherwise deprived the master of their labor could be fined or have time addedon to their indenture. A lack of control over one’s labor and surroundings height-ened the servant’s status as a dependent within colonial society.

Still, there were crucial distinctions between servitude and slavery. Servitude wasconsidered a voluntary and contractual process. Most servants were recruited fromGreat Britain and Germany and expected to improve their lives by escaping tenancyand overcrowded conditions in Europe. In the British colonies and during the earlynational period, indentured servants enjoyed the rights of Englishmen under thecommon law. This meant that they were entitled to adequate food, clothing, and

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shelter and generally received free time on Sundays. Unlike slaves, servants couldlegally own property and could complain to local courts for assistance if their mas-ters treated them with cruelty or failed to comply with the terms of the indenturecontract. However, the victim’s access to legal redress was somewhat curtailed bythe unequal social relationships pervasive in the colonial courtroom—a petitionerfaced a judge and jury of masters rather than peers.

Female servants faced gender and sexual discrimination as bound laborers incolonial America. The rape of a servant by a master was difficult to prove in court,and many cases probably went unreported due to a servant’s fear of the master’sreprisals. Most female servants had left their families in Europe and had few rela-tives and friends who could provide protection for them in America. Even if awoman pursued her case in court, judges and juries could interpret cases of sexualassault and rape as consensual relationships, privileging a master’s version of theevent. Since masters controlled servants’ movements and activities, servants weresubject to sexual vulnerability and sexual harassment.

Female servants were in an especially vulnerable position as their work oftentook place within the household; women whose work involved child care, cooking,and cleaning found themselves on call at all hours of the day and night. HistorianSharon Block points out that women’s attempts to negotiate with their masterscould be misconstrued as consent or compliance. During the seventeenth and eigh-teenth centuries, most jurists assumed that conception could not occur if both par-ties did not achieve sexual satisfaction. According to this theory a rape could notresult in pregnancy; conception entailed women’s consent. A pregnant female ser-vant received further penalty from her master/mistress who were deprived of theservant’s labor as a result of childbearing. Thus pregnant servants often had addi-tional time added to their period of indenture and/or fines levied against the fatherof the child who had to pay damages to the female’s master or mistress. If thewoman refused to name the father or if he could not be found, the fine was leviedon the female servant. Female servants were also liable for medical and child careexpenses resulting from pregnancy. In many cases, a servant’s child could also betreated as an apprentice or indentured servant, perhaps removing him/her from themother’s care. Cases of illegitimate births were widespread in the Chesapeake re-gion; in the late seventeenth century records indicate that 20 percent of the femaleservants living in one Maryland county were presented to the county court forbearing children out of wedlock.

Although rape was a capital crime in colonial America, masters or male membersof the gentry class accused of rape generally saw their charges dropped to sexualassault or fornication (implying consent). If found guilty, they faced fines for theiroffense and were forced to sell the servant to another employer. Several studies,however, note that male servants accused of rape were more likely to be convictedand punished for the crime than were men of higher social standing.

Most servants worked for four to seven years under their labor contracts, al-though younger servants generally served longer contracts until they reached legalmaturity. Servants generally worked six days a week for 10 to 14 hours per day.Upon completion of the period of indenture, a servant received his or her “freedomdues.” These rewards varied according to the terms of the indenture; most servantsreceived clothing and food; males also received rights to landownership as well astools and livestock. Female servants generally received a small cash payment in lieuof land rights. Once freed, most female servants living in the Chesapeake area

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married and established households of their own. While a few former servantsachieved material success and rose through the ranks of colonial society, most re-mained poor and continued to work as paid servants or tenants.

Indentured servitude declined over the course of the eighteenth century in theUnited States as servant prices rose, and planters increasingly relied on slave labor.Servants continued to work as laborers in the mid-Atlantic region, but by the 1830smost employers relied on wage laborers rather than indentured servants. Indenturedservitude continues to exist in some parts of the world today. Human rights andlabor organizations report cases of indentured servitude in the form of child andunpaid labor in countries such as Pakistan, Haiti, China, and Thailand.

Suggested Reading: Sharon Block, “Lines of Color, Sex, and Service: Comparative SexualCoercion in Early America,” in Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North AmericanHistory, ed. Martha Hodes (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 141–163; Kath-leen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race and Powerin Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); David Gal-enson, White Servitude in Colonial America: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981); Sharon Salinger, “To Serve Well and Faithfully”: Labor and Inden-tured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

REGAN SHELTON

INFANTICIDE. Infanticide is the killing of a newborn baby or an infant. In theUnited States, the crime is considered a homicide regardless of the age of the child.In the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, and several other countries,infanticide is the killing of a newborn or infant under one year of age. Whether aform of population control, gender selection, or impoverished desperation, infan-ticide historically has been performed by young, single women who were eitherraped or seduced by males and then abandoned to cope with their pregnancy ontheir own.

The secret nature of infanticide and the sparse records concerning it do not read-ily allow historians to gauge its frequency and change over time. What can betraced, however, are the public attitudes toward infanticide. Many ancient societiesallowed the father to decide whether the child should live or not. Roman EmperorConstantine I explicitly forbade this in the fourth century, but most legislation andenforcement of infanticide in the Middle Ages was left to the Catholic Church. Notuntil the sixteenth century did civil authorities explicitly prohibit the act. In 1556,King Henry II of France declared that all pregnancies out of wedlock must bedeclared to the public authorities. Failure to do so and miscarriage or subsequentdeath of the child were grounds for prosecuting the mother for murder. In England,King James I levied similar prohibitions in 1624. The punishment in both instanceswas death. These laws were copied in the American colonies and in several Euro-pean countries. Until the mid-eighteenth century, judges strictly enforced the crime,and prosecutions were heavily weighted toward women.

By the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, judges and juries treated thedefendants more leniently. In 1774, Massachusetts reduced the punishment for thedeath of an illegitimate child to a fine of $100 and imprisonment. In England andFrance, many juries began to acquit the female defendants. In the 1820s and 1830s,French courts admitted extenuating circumstances for abortion and infanticide. Bythe end of the nineteenth century, many defendants had successfully claimed that

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they were temporarily insane. The judges were sympathetic to these claims, believ-ing that the women were victims both of male seducers and social evils. These beliefsunderlay the changing definitions of infanticide and its penalty in the nineteenthcentury. By 1863 concealing a birth in France was a misdemeanor, and the deathpenalty for infanticide was abolished in 1901. The British Infanticide Act of 1922(revised in 1938) changed the offense from murder to manslaughter. By the twen-tieth century many observers believed that mothers who killed their infants were inneed of psychiatric help rather than prison.

The women most likely to commit infanticide through the early twentieth centurywere young, single, and poor. Many were domestic servants. They tried to hidetheir pregnancies for fear of dishonoring themselves, their families, and their em-ployers. Many gave birth alone, without the aid of midwives, doctors, or familymembers, most frequently in latrines. They killed their babies by suffocating themimmediately after birth, by drowning, or by abandoning the child in an isolatedarea. Although access to abortion in most Western societies has probably reducedthe instances of infanticide, the characteristics of women most likely to commitinfanticide have changed. Since 1990, several famous cases of young women whokilled their babies by depositing them in toilets or on the highways have come tolight. No longer is it a crime of the poor and isolated. Many women derived frommiddle-class families and were relatively well educated. Some of them remained inrelationships with their partners. What has not changed, however, is the sense ofshame and dishonor that these women felt about their pregnancies. See also:Morning-After Pill.

Suggested Reading: John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Chil-dren in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Pantheon,1988); Rachel G. Fuchs, Poor and Pregnant in Paris: Strategies for Survival in the NineteenthCentury (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992); Peter C. Hoffer and N.E.H.Hull, Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England and New England, 1558–1803 (New York:New York University Press, 1981); Mark Jackson, ed., Infanticide: Historical Perspectiveson Child Murder and Concealment, 1550–2000 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Com-pany, 2002); Larry S. Milner, Hardness of Heart/Hardness of Life: The Stain of HumanInfanticide (New York: University Press of America, 2000).

CHRISTOPHER CORLEY

INTERRACIAL RAPE. The term interracial rape refers to cases of rape that involveperpetrators and victims of different racial or ethnic descent. While interracial rapeis statistically known to be the exception, not the rule, the term clearly underscoresthat the perception of and the discourse on acts of sexual violence are highly ra-cialized. This holds particularly true for cultures that look back on a history ofintense race conflict and racial discrimination. Accordingly, U.S. culture has coinedsuch loaded concepts as “white-on-black” and “black-on-white” rape, which tendsto recall particular eras in American history, most particularly slavery and post-bellum culture. At the same time, the racialization of rape is an extension of a moregeneral tendency within the history of sexual violence to register rape predomi-nantly as a crime involving persons of unequal power relations. Defined for a longtime as both an attack on a woman’s and her family’s honor and as a kind ofproperty damage, criminal courts have tended to limit themselves to cases in whichparties of different classes, races, or ethnicities came into contact. Whether a case

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of rape receives high public visibility or is considered of little significance is thereforedependent on the relations of classes, races, and ethnicities within a particular cul-ture at a particular historical moment. Historically, the rape of African Americanand lower-class women, for instance, registered only in rare cases, partly becausesexual violence has for a long time been considered inherent to sexualities of AfricanAmericans and persons of lower-class status, partly because of the supposed insig-nificance of the “damage” done. Due to the legal status of slaves as chattel andproperty, the sexual violation of enslaved black women remained largely withoutlegal retribution. To the contrary, during times of slavery the sexual violation ofenslaved black women by their white owners became accepted as an institutional-ized means of reproducing the slavers’ property. The term interracial rape thus notonly foregrounds the incongruence between acts of sexual violence, on the onehand, and the dominant narratives of rape cultures generate, on the other. It alsounderlines how ideas about gender, race, and class keep monitoring the perceptionand interpretation of actual sexual violence.

A paradigmatic example of how interracial rape continues to dominate the publicperception and representation of sexual violence in American culture is the so-calledCentral Park Jogger rape case. Despite the fact that more than 30 rapes were re-ported during the same week in New York City, one of which involved the neardecapitation of a black woman, the brutal rape of the 28-year-old white femalejogger in April 1989 has preoccupied the media for years. Even though raped by asingle perpetrator, until recently the woman, an investment banker, was assumedto have been the victim of a beating and gang rape by a group of black and Hispanicteenagers whom the news depicted as a “wolf pack.” The case only reinforced theestablished, yet misconceived notion of rape as an encounter of strangers in publicplaces. Moreover, media coverage did not center upon the gender issues involvedin the sexual violation but interpreted the case as a conflict between two partiesclearly distinguished by race, ethnicity, and class: on the one hand, whites to whomthe violation of the young urban professional signified the loss of territory; on theother, African Americans who considered the treatment of the violators as yet an-other lynching campaign.

The discursive scene of the crime thus draws upon a whole cultural register gen-erated in the course of late-nineteenth-century interracial conflicts and nationalidentity formation. Specifically, it invoked what W.J. Cash in the early 1940s la-beled the “Southern rape complex,” according to which the presumed sexual vio-lation of white beauty by black beast symbolized the “rape” of the South duringReconstruction (1865–1877) and legitimized retaliation through lynch violence. Atthe same time, this complex inflicted a fear of rape, which, like the threat of lynch-ing, kept a subordinate group—American women in the process of fighting forsuffrage—subjugated. Whereas the paradigm of rape and lynching has dominatedthe discourse on sexual violation, the victims of sexual violation themselves often-times receive little attention.

Capitalizing on interracial rape, American culture has tended to sexualize andcriminalize interracial encounters and to inflect sexuality according to class, race,and ethnicity. At the same time intraracial and intraethnic sexual violence has of-tentimes remained unmarked or insignificant. The predominant projection of therapist as black or ethnic “other” has not only tended to draw attention away fromcases of sexual assault involving white middle- and upper-class perpetrators, asfeminist critics have underlined. From the 1970s on, African American feminists,

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in particular, have objected not only to the historical silencing of the sexual violenceto which African American women have been subjected. In an act of self-criticismthey also pointed to the denial, on the part of African American women, of intra-racial, that is, “black-on-black,” sexual violence. Having been discriminated againston the basis of both race and gender, black women have frequently felt torn intheir political loyalties, which leaned toward both black men in their fight againstracism and women of different races and ethnicities in their struggle against sexism.Complicit with the dominant rhetoric of interracial rape, their tendency to passsilence on intraracial sexual violence has evolved the “cult of secrecy” and a “cul-ture of dissemblance,” which can be seen to form black women’s central strategyof coping and protecting “the sanity of inner aspects of their lives” (Hine, 294).This secrecy moreover tends to maintain both white supremacy at the expense ofblack people of both genders and the subjection of (white) female sexuality andpersonhood within white dominance. In turn, one may argue that the tendency todelete “black-on-black” rape from the cultural text has helped to evolve the lynch-ing of black men by white supremacy as a dominant figure of racial discrimination.This focus of the part of African American discourse on lynching, as opposed torape, has in turn marginalized issues of (black) female sexuality and personhood.This explains why a sexual aggressor like boxer Mike Tyson may figure as a “vic-tim” of rape, while the actual rape victim, especially if she is of lower-class descent,may vanish from the scene almost entirely. See also: Rape-Lynch Scenario.

Suggested Reading: Angela Davis, “Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist,”Women, Race and Class (New York: Random, 1983), 172–201; Darlene Clark Hine, “Rapeand the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West: Preliminary Thoughts on theCulture of Dissemblance,” Signs 14.4 (1989): 912–920; Sabine Sielke, “The Rise of the(Black) Rapist and the Reconstruction of Difference, or: ‘Realist’ Rape,” in her ReadingRape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature, 1790–1990 (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2002), 33–74; Valerie Smith, “Split Affinities: The Case of Inter-racial Rape,” in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (NewYork: Routledge, 1990), 271–287; Robyn Wiegman, “The Anatomy of Lynching,” Journalof the History of Sexuality 3.3 (1993): 449–467.

SABINE SIELKE

K

KETAMINE. Ketamine is one of the “club drugs” that is most closely associatedwith drug-facilitated sexual assault. As a prescription drug, ketamine (tradenameKetalar) is an injectable anesthetic that has been used in hospitals and other medicalfacilities, such as pain management clinics, since 1970. It is a component of painmanagement programs for patients with chronic intractable pain such as one wouldexperience from terminal cancer. However, most of the ketamine sold (90 percent)at the present time is for veterinary use.

Ketamine is usually ingested in a liquid form, snorted, or smoked as a whitepowder with marijuana or tobacco. It can also be injected intramuscularly. Whenketamine is injected, the reaction may be almost immediate. When ingested orally,as would occur when a dose might be added to someone’s drink at a club or party,the initial reaction may occur between 10 to 20 minutes, thus giving the perpetratorenough time to get away. When snorted, the reaction will occur between 5 and 10minutes. The maximum effect peaks at anywhere between 1 and 6 hours. However,the effects can last up to 48 hours, therefore enabling sexual predators to takeadvantage of the victim and disappear without a trace.

Even low doses of ketamine (10–100 milligrams) can produce the followingsymptoms: poor attention and poor learning at the very least, followed by a dream-like state, hallucinations, hypertension, muscle rigidity, paranoia and aggressivebehaviors, numbness, and paralysis. Chronic use can lead to psychological addictionand severe mental illness. One dose alone can produce severe psychological symp-toms from which the individual may not recover. High doses of ketamine can causedelirium, amnesia-impaired motor function, depression, and potentially fatal res-piratory symptoms.

The street names for ketamine include “Special K,” “Vitamin K,” and “Cat Val-ium.” The popularity of ketamine increased in the 1980s when abusers found thatreactions were similar to phencyclidine (PCP), a particularly dangerous drug thatalso produces dreamlike states and hallucinations. Ketamine can also be combinedwith Ecstasy and marijuana, producing a product called EKG on the streets. Some

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users prefer ketamine as opposed to other drugs and purchase it exclusively. Seealso: Alcohol; Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB); Rohypnol.

Suggested Reading: “Ketamine: A Fact Sheet,” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Asso-ciation’s National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, http://www.health.org/nongovpubs/ketamine/.

SHARON A. DROZDOWSKI AND JUDITH A. WATERS

KIDNAPPING. See Abduction (Kidnapping).

KINSEY, ALFRED C. (1894–1956). When his book, Sexual Behavior in the Hu-man Male was released in 1948, people began to refer to author, scientist, and sexresearcher Alfred Kinsey as “the Dr. Gallup of Sex.” In 1953, Kinsey and the In-stitute of Sex Research at the University of Indiana published Sexual Behavior inthe Human Female. The second volume did not yield that same success as the malevolume; moreover, the Rockefeller Foundation withdrew its funding in 1953.Shortly after the funding collapsed, Kinsey died of a heart attack in 1956.

Kinsey examined human sexuality as a scientist. Like with his study of gall wasps,he collected numerous interviews and engaged in fieldwork throughout the Mid-west, studying heterosexuals, homosexuals, couples, hustlers, sex offenders, andprisoners. Kinsey was viewed by those who worked with him and knew him as atalented interviewer. He changed his language, his body language, and his questionformat depending on the interviewee.

In his research on men, Kinsey turned a blind eye to certain questions, particularlychild rape. An informant known as Mr. X provided Kinsey with information aboutchild sexuality. Historian James Jones wrote that Mr. X, a career government em-ployee, was also a career child molester who “masturbated infants, penetrated chil-dren, and performed a variety of sex acts on preadolescent boys and girls alike”(511). Although Kinsey believed that rape was wrong because it involved sex de-rived from force, violence, and coercion, he seemed unable or unwilling to distin-guish the behavior of Mr. X as rape and molestation from a mutual sexualexperience.

Even in death, Kinsey still caused a stir. Forty years after his death, Kinsey’swork on the sexuality of boys and young men derived from the interviews withMr. X came under fire. In 1995, Steve Stockman, in Galveston, Texas, initiated abill to investigate Kinsey because of the funding he had received and the informationhe culled from Mr. X. However, the bill died in committee.

Suggested Reading: James H. Jones, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life (New York:W.W. Norton, 1997); Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin, Sexual Behaviorin the Human Male (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1948); Alfred Kinsey and the Staff of theInstitute of Sex Research, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia: W.B. Saun-ders, 1953).

ELAINE CAREY

L

LAW ENFORCEMENT. Law enforcement agencies worldwide follow a variety ofpenal or criminal codes and sentencing guidelines. For instance, the contents of theNew York Penal Code, the German Penal Code, the Penal Law of Israel, and thePennsylvania Crimes Code all differ slightly while addressing the same crimes. Acrime may be defined by different terms in each state and country. There are varioustypes and specific levels of the sexual offense known as rape. For instance, rape inthe third degree is different from rape in the first degree. Rape is a felony in everyU.S. state. A felony is an offense for which a criminal may be sentenced to morethan a year in prison.

Law enforcement officials and prosecutors investigate rape thoroughly. Theymust narrow down the broad term of rape into its legal components. Thus, theyexplore whether or not a victim was mentally incapacitated or physically helplessduring rape, whether there was forcible compulsion, how many crimes occurredsurrounding the rape incident (e.g., abduction/kidnapping, aggravated sexual con-tact), and other issues.

Reporting a rape is frequently an unpleasant experience for survivors. In fact, thetraumatic process of recounting the experience is often referred to as secondaryrape. Women who have been raped might request to speak with a female policeofficer, but one may not be available at the time of a report, and in some places,there may not be one specialized to handle a rape case. Some rape victims havestated that police were insensitive, unsympathetic, or unreceptive. Still others havestated that law enforcement officials made harsh, psychologically damaging state-ments to them. There are even reports of bias against rape survivors; some assertthat police are more ready to believe victims who struggled or who reported a rapeimmediately after its conclusion over victims who did not.

To combat this, officers in many places are given more sensitivity training thanin past decades. In addition, some cities have organized all sex crimes into specialvictims units. Officers in these units are given special training, and the units have

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ties to rape counselors and others trained to gather evidence and prosecute sexcrimes.

Police collect and compile basic data on the suspect, such as height, race, modeof operation, and previous arrest records. They work upon facts, information, andevidence received by the victim, as well as physical and medical evidence. The lawenforcement and medical communities work together to collect rape evidence. Atthe hospital, medical personnel may use a rape kit to collect evidence. In somecases, such as the rape of a child not yet old enough to talk, the medical evidenceis the entire case against a defendant.

When gathering a report, all police officers generally use the same principles. Anofficer is sent to the scene of the crime. The officer interviews the survivor at thescene, hospital, police office, or the individual’s home. Clothing may be collectedfor evidence. Standardized questions help the officer remember to cover all areasand details needed for suspect apprehension and a possible trial. While it may seemto the survivor that repeated questions means that an officer doubts the account,repetition is common in attempts to document all details. Police make sure thesurvivor gets treatment for injuries. Further questioning may take place at a latertime at police headquarters, where a sketch artist might work with the survivor tocreate a picture of the rapist. Testimony gathered helps officials piece together anypattern, which may match details from other rapes and lead to a suspect. Policewill seek witnesses but will keep a rape victim’s identity private as they do so. Evensomeone who saw the victim after the attack may have circumstantial evidence,such as testimony of the victim’s demeanor, composure, injuries, or physiologicalstate, such as shock.

A survivor cannot be forced to press charges. If the survivor does so, the inves-tigation continues. A suspect is sought and must be identified. With a suspect incustody, the case is handed over to a prosecutor, who decides if the case is strongenough to go to trial. The district attorney has the final say on trying the case. Incourt, the survivor testifies as the primary witness against the attacker. Sometimesthe entire process from the initial stages of reporting the crime to a rapist’s sen-tencing can take several years. See also: DNA Collection and Evidence; Prosecution.

Suggested Reading: Helen Benedict, Recovery: How to Survive Sexual Assault for Women,Men, Teenagers, Their Friends and Families (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985); SusanBrownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: First Ballantine Books,1993).

ELIZABETH JENNER

LAWS. See Rape Laws.

LEGISLATION, ILLEGAL SEX ACTS. One of the areas of jurisprudence that hasbeen controversial throughout history has been the element of law dealing withsexual intercourse and in turn the prohibition on specific sexual acts that have beendeemed immoral and therefore illegal. In the Western legal tradition, the sexual actsthat have been classified as illegal, such as homosexuality, bestiality, incest, adulteryand necrophilia, are prohibited in large part as a result of theological prohibitionsestablished in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Judeo-Christian monothe-istic tradition. With the advent of Islam in 622 c.e., many of the theological

LEGISLATION, SEXUAL HARASSMENT 115

traditions and prohibitions within the Judeo-Christian tradition were also incor-porated into the Islamic jurisprudential framework, included the prohibition againstsexual acts considered to “go against the Natural Order.”

English common law—the model for the Western legal tradition—does prohibitrape, bestiality, and incest, which carried over to the American constitutional sys-tem. However, the legal rules surrounding adultery and homosexual intercourse,which existed for centuries, have slowly eroded due to societal changes. In thecontext of the American judicial system, there has been a systematic change in boththe perception of the law and the application of legal precedence toward consensualsex between unmarried persons, which had been decriminalized and deemed asbeing socially acceptable. In terms of legislation and the evitable interpretation oflaws by the judiciary pertaining to sexual conduct, the “illegal sex acts” under themost scrutiny are those that are interwoven into the discussion regarding privacyand discrimination—namely, same-sex intercourse, which has been examined bylandmark cases Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

The U.S. Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)—the seminal SupremeCourt decision that upheld a Georgia state law that criminalized homosexual ac-tivity—argued in the majority opinion that nation–states had long repressed ho-mosexual acts throughout the course of Western civilization and that caseprecedence in Roman law, as well as the writings of Sir William Blackstone andthe Baron de Montesquieu, supported the 1986 decision. As such, in regard to theissue of privacy, Justice Byron White argued in the majority opinion that eventhough homosexual conduct may occur in the privacy of one’s home, illegal con-duct, in the context of the Georgia law where sodomy was illegal, is not alwaysimmunized “whenever it occurs in the home.” However, the 1986 decision wouldbe challenged and overturned in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, where the SupremeCourt would reverse itself and find in the majority opinion in the case of JohnLawrence’s conviction of a Class C misdemeanor for sodomy that Lawrence’s con-viction for adult consensual sexual intimacy was a violation of the due processclause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Following the ruling in Lawrence, the legalenvironment toward illegal sex acts changed dramatically, of which the repercus-sions are still being dealt with. With the exception of acts of rape and incest, allconsensual sexual acts have been decriminalized, and as such, legislators are rede-fining the laws accordingly. See also: Prison Rape; Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Sodomy Laws, www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lawrence.htm.OJAN ARYANFARD

LEGISLATION, SEXUAL HARASSMENT. Sexual harassment is defined as anyunwelcome conduct that is sexual in nature. Legislation prohibits sexual harassmentin many social contexts including education, housing, and employment; however,most law revolves around two types of sexual harassment that have been recognizedas illegal in the workplace: quid pro quo and hostile work environment. Quid proquo consists of illegal acts in which victims are forced to submit sexually to others’demands or face negative consequences such as being denied requests for raises orpromotions. A hostile work environment is defined as a workplace in which sexuallanguage and behavior creates a perceived impediment to an individual fulfillinghis/her professional responsibilities.

Federal sexual harassment law evolved out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as

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amended by Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972, the Equal Employ-ment Opportunity Act of 1972, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. However, federalcourts were at first reluctant to find sexual harassment unlawful in the workplaceunder Title VII of the 1964 Act, in part because there was little legislative historyto Congress’ last-minute decision to prohibit gender discrimination in Title VII.

In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Courtfound both quid pro quo and hostile work environment unlawful under Title VII,and since that time, victims of sexual harassment in workplaces of 15 or moreemployees have had a private right of action in federal court against alleged ha-rassers. In a series of decisions in the late 1990s, the U.S. Supreme Court expandedthe scope of employer liability for a supervisor’s harassing conduct, even to certainsituations in which the employer did not know of the supervisor’s unlawful activ-ities. Title VII of the 1964 Act, as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, entitlesaggrieved employees to different remedies, depending on the case. An employeemight be entitled to an injunction enjoining the harassing conduct, reinstatement,back pay and benefits, damages for personal injuries (physical and emotional), pu-nitive damages against the employer, attorneys’ fees and costs, or an order requiringthe company to reform its sexual harassment policies. All 50 states have civil laws,in some form or another, prohibiting sexual harassment in employment; however,the scope of the prohibited conduct and available remedies vary from state to state.Additionally, state laws often target smaller employers not reached by federal law.

In the 1990s, courts and legislatures started to look more closely at sexual ha-rassment in social contexts other than employment. In Franklin v. Gwinnett CountyPublic Schools, 503 U.S. 60 (1992), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual ha-rassment in public schools is illegal under both Title VII of the 1964 Act and TitleIX (which prohibits gender-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funds),passed as part of the Educational Amendment of 1972. All states have also enactedvarious forms of antistalking laws criminalizing persistent, harassing conduct thatcauses harassed individuals to suffer emotional distress and develop reasonable fearsof physical injury or death. Some of those laws reach cyber stalking, or stalkingthat occurs over the Internet. While antistalking laws are not limited to stalkingthat is sexually motivated, much of the stalking that is prosecuted under those lawshas a sexual animus.

Despite federal and state law prohibiting sexual harassment, the most aggressivesexual harassment policies are often adopted by nongovernmental entities. In em-ployment and higher education, for example, employers and universities have in-centives to develop their own sexual harassment policies and to self-police. Suchproactive behavior makes them less susceptible to employees and students whoallege not only that they were harassed but also that their employers or universitiesdid nothing to prevent the harassment. See also: Campus Rape; Campus SecurityAct (Clery Act).

Suggested Reading: Ernest C. Hadley and George M. Chuzi, Sexual Harassment: FederalLaw, 3rd ed. (Arlington, VA: Dewey Publications, 1997).

GREGORY M. DUHL

LITERATURE, WORLD AND AMERICAN. Rape and sexual violence are recur-rent and central tropes and motives of world literature from ancient myths to post-modernist fiction. Accordingly, the meaning of literary representations of rape has

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changed with the different forms and functions literature has taken in the courseof its history. Greek and Roman mythology has repeatedly employed rape as afigure of transformation and a motor of change as, for instance, in the Philomelamyth or the legends of the rape of the Sabine women and the rape of Lucretia. Bycontrast, realist literature from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century evolvedrape as a dominant rhetorical figure of social, racial, and ethnic difference and aspart of its moral and aesthetic agenda, which meant to renegotiate cultural consen-sus through literary effects of authenticity. Still literary texts, be they classic rapenarratives or modernist poems featuring tropes of rape, such as W.B. Yeats’s “Ledaand the Swan,” should not be taken as depictions that mirror social phenomena ofsexual violence. Like other physical experiences, including pain and sexuality, rapetends to resist representation. Moreover, rape narratives and poems are first of allcultural representations that refer to, recall, and oftentimes mock or parody theirown tradition and history of representation. The legend of the rape of Lucretia, forinstance, is prominently recontextualized in Renaissance literature and culture, forinstance, in William Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, as well as in Rembrandt’spaintings. Likewise the Philomela myth was reworked by the Roman poet Ovid, aswell as in the fiction of many American authors, including John Irving and MayaAngelou.

Such intertextual references underline that literary representations of rape relateto real rape incidents in highly mediated ways only. They are primarily interpre-tations, readings of rape. Transposed into discourse, rape functions as a rhetoricaldevice, an insistent figure for other social, political, and economic concerns andconflicts. In addition, as they have evolved in historically specific contexts, rapenarratives interrelate with, produce, and subsequently reproduce a cultural sym-bology that employs sexual deviance for the formation of cultural identities. Morespecifically, rape narratives have been a major force in the cultural construction ofsexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and even national identity. As they seem tomake sense of socially deviant behavior, they oftentimes limit our understanding ofsexual violence, while producing norms of sexuality in the process.

American rape narratives in particular are highly overdetermined by a distincthistory of racial conflict and a discourse on race. In the African American slavenarrative, for instance, hints at sexual violation of enslaved black women functionedas part of the political agenda of abolitionism. The image of the hypersexualizedblack rapist, projected, for instance, by racist historical novels of Thomas Dixon,became a trope for “Negro rule” during Reconstruction, which in turn legitimizedlynch violence against African Americans. Thus each national literary historyevolves its own dominant rape narratives, which are historically and ideologicallyspecific, even if they rely on widely established pretexts (such as myths) and func-tional patterns (such as the “othering” of sexual violence).

Literary texts are particularly revealing for an understanding of cultural repre-sentations of rape and their meaning because they embed instances of rape intosupposedly conclusive stories and manage to “naturalize” sexual violence into con-sensual views on gender, sexuality, and the world at large. At the same time fic-tional, especially modernist and postmodernist novels such as William Faulkner’sSanctuary (1931), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), or Bret Easton Ellis’s AmericanPsycho (1991) do not render rape realistically but re-present, repoliticize, and thusreinterpret previous literary interrogations of rape and sexual violence. In this waythey inscribe themselves into a tradition of readings of rape, a tradition they si-

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multaneously remember, interfere with, and call into question. See also: Art; Films,Foreign; Films, U.S.

Suggested Reading: Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse, eds., The Violence ofRepresentation: Literature and the History of Violence (London: Routledge, 1989); FrancesFerguson, “Rape and the Rise of the Novel,” Representations 20 (September 1987): 88–112;Christine Froula, “The Daughter’s Seduction: Sexual Violence and Literary History,” Signs11.4 (1986): 621–644; Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver, eds., Rape and Representation (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1991); Stephanie H. Jed, Chaste Thinking: The Rape ofLucretia and the Birth of Humanism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); SabineSielke, Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature, 1790–1990(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).

SABINE SIELKE

LYNCHING. See Rape-Lynch Scenario.

M

MACHISMO. Machismo is most commonly linked with Latin American and Latinoconstructions of masculinity, although it is evident in other cultures. The use andapplication of the term machismo is contradictory if not also complex. Although astereotypical view of Latin masculinity and sexuality, it has historically been usedby scholars as a gendered category of analysis of men and their relationships withwomen.

According to scholars, men exhibit a number of characteristics that serve as abasis of machismo. Machos are sexually virile and promiscuous. In regard towomen, machos view women as passive, but they are also dangerous because theirsexuality is the source of family and masculine honor. Machos respect the cult ofvirginity and prescribe it for the women of their family as the basis of their ownmasculine honor. However, other women, those outside the family, are for thetaking. Young men are taught early “to be a man” and to become sexually activeat an early age. Thus, the macho’s sexual conquest as evident in his fertility andnumber of offspring is a source of power and prestige.

The contradiction in male and female sexuality and behavior contributes to mas-culine aggression and violence. Because the macho’s goal is to pursue women andhave many women, he may resort to rape, in and outside of marriage. The dishon-oring and rape of women may be necessary for a man to maintain his machismo.Thus, the macho is portrayed and viewed as violent, lascivious, and dangerous.

Puerto Rican scholar, poet, and novelist Martın Espada argues that Anglos haveused the stereotypical construction of Latino masculinity and machismo to repressLatino men in the United States (Gonzalez, 87). Although the word macho is manytimes used as a pejorative term, contemporary writers have embraced the word andrecreated it as a signifier of the positive aspects of Latino masculinity. Activist andpoet Luis J. Rodrıquez writes, “For us, macho does not mean the bully, the jock,the knucklehead. He is warrior, protector, defender, and lover. He is artist, hero,father, and elder” (Gonzalez, 201). See also: Hispanics/Latinos.

120 MACKINNON, CATHARINE A.

Suggested Reading: Ray Gonzalez, ed., Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood(New York: Anchor, 1996); Alfredo Mirande, Hombres y Machos: Masculinity in LatinoCulture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); Rafael Ramırez, What It Means to Be a Man:Reflections on Puerto Rican Masculinity (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,1999).

ELAINE CAREY

MACKINNON, CATHARINE A. (1946– ). Feminist legal scholar, law professor,advocate, and a founder of feminist legal theory and litigation methods, CatharineA. MacKinnon has been a pivotal force in the movement to elevate women’s statusin law and society since the late 1970s, when her compelling insights into the natureand consequences of sexual inequality first gained notice. Best known for her path-breaking, often controversial work on sexual harassment and pornography (muchof the latter with Andrea Dworkin), she has steadfastly endeavored to expose andremediate all forms of sexual violence against women. And while her positions onthese and other issues continue to draw fire from multiple quarters, their influenceon evolving legal conceptions of sex discrimination remains unmistakable.

MacKinnon’s ideas are unified by a radical conception of entrenched male dom-inance and enforced female subordination, a pervasively eroticized hierarchical re-lationship that both sustains inequality between the sexes and facilitates the sexuallyassaultive practices that are among its most pernicious by-products. This is nowheremore apparent than in the case of rape. According to MacKinnon, “If sexuality iscentral to women’s definition and forced sex is central to sexuality, rape is indige-nous, not exceptional, to women’s social condition” (Feminist Theory, 172). Em-phasizing rape’s socially constructed, deeply gendered character, she contends that“[t]o be rapable . . . defines what a woman is” (178). Law, with its relentlesslymasculine stance, has exacerbated victims’ plight, producing a climate in whichrape, from women’s point of view, is not “prohibited” but merely “regulated”(179).

MacKinnon has not confined her activities to the borders of the United States.Her most significant international involvement to date grew out of the systematicrapes perpetrated by Serbian forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s. Inresponse, she developed the claim that ethnically based mass rape intended to de-stroy a people was a genocidal act, a motivation further evidenced in the widespreadpractice of forced impregnation as part of a strategy of “ethnic cleansing.” Thesewere central elements in a civil action brought in federal district court by Mac-Kinnon and her colleagues against the former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic forcommand responsibility in sexual and other crimes committed against Bosnian andCroation women and children, a case that ultimately resulted in a $745 millionjudgment for the plaintiffs.

As these examples suggest, MacKinnon’s efforts to advance the cause of sexequality have been vast in scope as well as impact. Together they bespeak a pro-found awareness of the continued vulnerability of women and girls to sex-basedexploitation and an abiding commitment to working toward its elimination world-wide. See also: Genocide.

Suggested Reading: Elizabeth Amon, “Rape in Wartime: Letting the Victims Tell TheirStories,” National Law Journal, September 18, 2000; Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Rape,Genocide, and Women’s Human Rights,” in Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia-

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Herzegovina, ed. Alexandra Stiglmayer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994);Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1989); Fred Strebeigh, “Defining Law on the Feminist Frontier,” New YorkTimes Magazine, October 6, 1991.

LISA CARDYN

MALE RAPE. Male rape is an act of violence and a crime. It can include anal andoral penetration, oral sex, and other behaviors that illegally violate an individual’sbody by use of manipulation, coercion, or force. Any man can be a victim of sexualassault regardless of his age, physical ability, economic status, race/ethnicity, andsexual identity. Most men are raped by other men. A small percentage of men areraped by women, usually an acquaintance. In most cases, women use coercion andmanipulation instead of physical force.

The 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 9 percent of all rape happensto men. Although statistics vary, research indicates that more male rape occurswithin the prison system. In their 2000 article in The Prison Journal, CindyStruckman-Johnson and David Struckman-Johnson noted that 21 percent of maleinmates who responded to a survey of seven midwestern prisons indicated that theyhad been raped or had experienced forced sexual contact at least once since theywere incarcerated.

Although most male rape is perpetrated by men, it should not be considered“homosexual rape.” While males who rape other males usually identify themselvesas heterosexual, neither the biological sex nor the sexual identification of the rapistor the rape victim makes the act a sexual one. Sexual intercourse without mutualconsent is always rape. Rape is not a pursuit of sex; it is about the attainment ofpower and control over another person or group.

Many men who are raped feel humiliated, ashamed, isolated, and alone. Survi-vors may fear that they will not be believed or that they will be blamed for notfending off the attacker and “stopping” the rape. Because of cultural ideas aboutmale strength and sexuality, some people believe that “real” men do not get rapedand that if a man is raped by another man, this will make him gay. Additionally,male survivors may interpret their rape as an act of sex and therefore believe theyhad a homosexual encounter. This can lead some men to question their sexualidentity and even prevent them from telling someone about the rape for fear ofbeing called homosexual.

Due to the stigma attached to being a male rape victim and the above-mentionedconcerns, many men do not report rape or tell anyone about their experience. Com-ing forward as a victim and getting medical and social help may feel like a violationof the code of masculinity. When gay men are raped, their feelings of isolation andpowerlessness can be even greater. Due to homophobia, the fear and/or hatred ofhomosexuality in oneself or others, they may not be “out” as gay to their familyand community and fear a negative reaction. They may not live in a communitywith counseling and advocacy services for gay survivors, and in some states theycan even be prosecuted under antisodomy laws for having what is considered illegalsex.

Lack of reporting and community awareness creates a lack of visibility of malerape and reinforces the isolation and silence of all victims. Some men do not realizethat they can anonymously call a rape crisis center, get a medical examination, and

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report acquaintance and stranger rape to the police because they believe that theseservices are only for female victims. While most services still focus on female sur-vivors and violence prevention for women, men can and do access these services.There are increasingly more men involved in violence prevention efforts, as well asmen’s groups to address concerns of male survivors and male perpetrators of rape.A part of stopping male rape requires awareness, education, and more accessibleservices for male survivors. See also: Anal Sex; Prison Rape; Rape Counseling.

Suggested Reading: Bureau of Justice Statistics Web site, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub; Fred Pelka, “Raped: A Male Survivor Breaks His Silence,” in Rape and Society: Read-ings on the Problem of Sexual Assault, ed. P. Searles and R.J. Berger (Boulder, CO: WestviewPress, 1995); Michael Scarce, Male on Male Rape: The Hidden Toll of Stigma and Shame(New York: Insight Books, 1997); Cindy Struckman-Johnson and David Struckman-Johnson,“Sexual Coercion Rates in Seven Midwestern Facilities for Men,” The Prison Journal 80.4(2000): 379–390, http://www.spr.org/pdf/struckman.pdf. Joseph Weinberg, “Male Survivorsof Incest and Other Sexual Assault (Part 1),” Teaching Sexual Ethics 4.1 (January 2000): 1–20.

HEATHER SCHMIDT

MARITAL RAPE. The word rape is derived from the Latin work raptus, whichwas used to define the act wherein one man damaged the property of another. Theproperty, of course, was the man’s wife or daughter. In the United States and En-gland, wives were considered the property of their husbands under the legal conceptof coverture, meaning that a woman was literally “covered” by her husband whenshe married. Thereafter, she ceased to have a separate legal existence. The reasoningwent that since a wife was owned by her husband, he had inherent rights to herbody. In most states a husband could beat his wife as long as the instrument usedwas no bigger than his thumb. Husbands also had legal unlimited access to theirwives’ bodies whenever they chose to exercise the right, regardless of a wife’s per-sonal desires. While coverture was no longer legally valid in most states after themid-nineteenth century when the first Married Women’s Property Acts were passed,husbands and the legal system continued to treat wives as sexual property. In Al-abama, for example, even husbands who raped wives who left them and filed fordivorce could not be prosecuted for rape. As late as 1992 a South Carolina manwas acquitted of raping his wife, even though he had videotaped the rape. Hesuccessfully argued that she was tied to the bed on the videotape not because ofrape but as part of their “usual” sexual practices.

The right of a husband to rape his wife has historically been protected by whatbecame known as the marital or spousal exemption. The legal basis for the maritalexemption has been traced to seventeenth-century England when Lord MatthewHale declared, “But the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himselfupon his lawful wife; for their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wifehath given up herself in the kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract” (Hale,628). Using that line of reasoning, most states defined rape as “the forcible pene-tration of the body of a woman, not the wife of the perpetrator,” making maritalrape legal by definition.

States have been slow to retract marital exemption laws because marriage hasbeen protected both traditionally and legally as a sacred and private institution.Supporters of marital exemptions have also claimed that vindictive wives could

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claim rape to repay husbands for real or imagined grievances and that marital rapewould be almost impossible to prove in a court of law. A landmark study of 900rape victims by Diana Russell in 1982 revealed that one out of every seven womenwho has ever been married has been raped by her husband at least once, and somewomen have been raped many times within marriage. Many of the women in Rus-sell’s study did not identify violent sexual acts within marriage as rape; yet theysuffered typical rape trauma symptoms. Some victims of marital rape exhibit ex-tensive physical and emotional problems for years after the marriage has been dis-solved. It has been argued that the aftermath of rape by a sexual partner may beeven more emotionally damaging than rape by a stranger because of the loss oftrust in intimate relationships.

In 1975 in Oregon, John Rideout became the first man to be charged with rapinghis wife while still living with her. According to his wife Greta, Rideout was ad-dicted to violent sex, which he frequently demanded several times a day. In October1975, Greta Rideout ran away from her abusive husband, but he followed her andlocked her in their apartment and beat her until she agreed to have sex with him.After he was acquitted of the rape charge, the couple reconciled but later divorced.Much criticism was directed at Greta Rideout throughout the trial, and it wasfrequently argued that she must have not been “raped” if she could return to themarriage. Studies on marital rape have shown that most wives who are raped arealso battered, as was the case with Greta Rideout.

Unlike most rape cases where prosecution is often unsuccessful, in marital rapecases the conviction rate is around 90 percent. For example, in the case of Peoplev. Liberta, a New York man raped his wife in front of their small son. Since theLibertas were living apart under court order at the time of the rape, the trial courtdetermined that they were not “married,” and the husband was not allowed toclaim the marital exemption. Liberta appealed his conviction, arguing that NewYork’s marital exemption was unconstitutional because it denied men who werenot married the right to equal protection from rape laws. New York’s highest courtturned the tables on him and upheld his conviction, and it overturned the state’smarital exemption law on the grounds that it denied equal protection to marriedwomen to be protected from rape in the same way that unmarried women were.The Liberta decision contended that none of the traditional legal arguments insupport of marital exemption laws were valid.

Up until the last quarter of the twentieth century when the women’s movementpushed for major changes in the legal status of women, most states retained maritalexemptions from rape laws. In some states, this exemption was extended tocommon-law husbands and live-in partners. By 2003, all 50 states and the federalgovernment defined marital rape as a crime punishable by law. Seventeen states andWashington, DC completely abolished the marital exemption, while other statesretained some element of the exemption. In most states, married women who areraped by their husbands also have the right to bring civil suit and may recovermedical and legal expenses, as well as damages for pain and suffering. See also:Battered Women; Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Matthew Hale, History of the Pleas of the Crown, vol. 1 (Philadelphia:R.H. Small, 1847); Linda Ledray, Recovering from Rape (New York: Henry Holt, 1994);Mary E. Odem and Judy Clay-Warner, eds., Confronting Rape and Sexual Assault (Wil-mington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998); Diana E.H. Russell, Rape in Marriage (New York:

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Macmillan, 1982); Irving J. Sloan, Rape (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publishing, 1992);Wellesley Centers for Women, “The Wife Rape Information Page,” http://www.wellesley.edu/WCW/projects/mrape.html.

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

MASSIE CASE. One of the most socially divisive cases of the twentieth century isthe rape of Thalia Massie on the Island of Hawaii. The daughter of a wealthyWashington couple and the wife of a naval officer, Massie was savagely raped byfive men of Asian descent following a dinner party. The incident set off a firestormof racial angst, which led to the murder of one of the accused rapists by Massie’shusband.

In 1931, Massie and her husband Lt. Thomas Massie moved to Honolulu as partof her husband’s deployment orders with the navy. On the night of September 11,1931, the Massies attended a party at the Ala Wai Inn. Thalia Massie decided toleave the get-together early and walk home. According to her testimony, as she waswalking home, five men, including a man named Joseph Kahahawai, forced Massieinto their car and drove her to the secluded Ala Moana Park, where she was beatenand raped by the men. The commander of the 14th Naval District, Rear AdmiralYates Stirling, which encompassed all the naval forces in Hawaii, purportedly con-tacted the governor of Hawaii, Lawrence Judd, to have the case “vigorously pros-ecuted.” However, as the court records illustrate, the five men gave conflictingtestimony of the rape, and after days of deliberation, the jury was deadlocked. Thejudge declared a mistrial, and a second trial was scheduled.

Critics of the trial accused the jury of racial bias, and tensions ran high throughthe States as a result. Admiral Stirling petitioned President Herbert Hoover to de-clare martial law in Hawaii, as did the General Assembly of Kentucky. The eventstook a turn for the surreal when Massie’s mother, Grace Fortescue, LieutenantMassie, and two subordinates kidnapped Kahahawai and began to interrogate himto extract a confession for the rape, which he purportedly did give Massie. Massieshot Kahahawai, but he was caught by police as he and his accomplices were at-tempting to dispose of the body. Acclaimed defense attorney Clarence Darrow wasretained for Thomas Massie’s defense. He argued that Massie was temporarily in-sane. However, Massie and his accomplices were sentenced to 10 years, which wascommuted by the governor to one hour to be served in his office. The Massie casepresents a unique study of how the judiciary can be changed by political pressure,and it accentuates the need for impartiality. See also: Rape Trials.

Suggested Reading: Cobey Black, Hawaii Scandal (Honolulu: Island Heritage, 2002); Rich-ard Borreca, “The Massie Case Brought Turmoil,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October 15,1999, http://starbulletin.com/1999/10/15/news/story7.html; Ronald T.Y. Moon, “The Casefor Judicial Independence,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 24, 1999, http://starbulletin.com/1999/07/24/editorial/special2.html.

OJAN ARYANFARD

MEDIA. The subject of media and rape is complicated. To be sure, media attentionraises public consciousness of any social issue. For example, as media attention hasincreased, women have been more willing to report rapes. However, the qualityand the effects of media coverage have been assessed both positively and negativelyby recent scholars.

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Media attention in the past century has been intricately connected with the civilrights and feminist movements. Until the 1950s, media coverage of rapes was usu-ally limited to those allegedly committed by African American men. During the civilrights movement, in an effort to increase public sensitivity to racist stereotypes, themedia sometimes emphasized the innocence of the wrongly accused by “denigratingthe victim.” Feminist attention to rape in the 1970s was significant in creatingpublic awareness of rape as an important social issue. This is demonstrated in theincrease in stories focused on rape. In 1968 the New York Times published 18stories about rape, and in 1973, it published 108. This coverage can be dividedinto three types: incident reports, episodic stories (which illustrated a specificwoman’s rape to demonstrate the political, legal, and social barriers involved inreporting and prosecuting a rape), and thematic stories (which examined one par-ticular aspect of the prosecution process from the victim’s point of view). A con-structive and direct result of the press attention was a sudden increase in the amountof antirape legislation and social services for rape victims.

Media coverage of rape involves some controversial issues: the coverage of thetrial, the identification of the victim, and the types of rape that the media cover.First, some feminist critics charge that the media purposefully provide stories sat-urated with “voyeuristic” and sensationalized details. Second, some questionwhether it is ethical for the media to publicly identify the victim. In the case of CoxBroadcasting Corporation v. Cohn in 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled thatnews agencies have the constitutional right to publish victims’ names. This publicidentification of victims is a contested topic. Some advocates argue that the abilityto disclose victims’ identities complicates a woman’s resolve to prosecute rapistsbecause of her fear of being placed “on trial” in the public eye or from publicembarrassment. But others counter this argument by emphasizing that the “ideal”of having a silenced and unnamed victim contributes to a culture of shame anddisempowerment for rape victims. In other words, silence equals another type ofidentity loss. To speak out about one’s experiences would empower them and causethem to take control over the event itself. Third, some believe that the media playsa pivotal role in creating a public understanding and definition of what constitutesrape. For example, in the last decade, there has been a greater focus on “date rape”or “acquaintance rape.” The effect, some have argued, is that more money has beendirected to college campuses to the detriment of women’s social centers and rapecrisis centers in urban and poorer areas.

These controversies aside, most have found productive results from media cov-erage. A less optimistic view can be found in the work of Helen Benedict, who findsthat the media fails in its coverage because it does not provide analyses of genderrelations and sexist stereotypes that feminist research asserts is the root cause ofrape. Instead, according to Benedict, the press treats rape as simply “unwanted sex,”and in so doing, it perpetuates rape in two ways: one, either by offering an imageof a victim who has tempted a man, or men, and in so doing effectively blames thevictim or, two, by blaming racial or socioeconomic conditions when the accusedfalls into a “criminal stereotype.”

While it is certain that the quality and merits of press coverage will continue tobe debated, it is undeniable that the media has helped shape public attitudes towardand awareness of rape and will continue to do so. See also: Advertising; Rape ShieldLaws.

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Suggested Reading: Helen Benedict, Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda:Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000).

JILL GORMAN

MEGAN’S LAW. On July 29, 1994, seven-year-old Megan Kanka was lured intothe nearby home of sex offender Jesse Timmendequas, who promised her a puppy.Megan was brutally raped and murdered. Her parents did not know that Timmen-dequas and two other sexual offenders were sharing a house in their neighborhoodin Hamilton Township, New Jersey. Timmendequas had twice been convicted ofsexual abuse of children but had only served 6 years of a 10-year sentence. Megan’sparents, Maureen and Richard Kanka, were outraged that they had not been no-tified and became outspoken advocates of community notification laws, foundingthe Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation. In 1994 Megan’s Law was enacted in NewJersey. Following New Jersey’s example, a number of states passed similar laws.Some states named laws after Megan Kanka, while others named their laws aftervictims of similar crimes in the particular state. When President Bill Clinton signedthe federal version of Megan’s Law, mandating community notification, in June1996, he called for a national registry of sexual offenders. By 1998, all 50 stateshad passed some version of Megan’s Law.

Most legislation based on Megan’s Law requires three tiers of notification. TierOne is made up of “low-risk” offenders and calls for notification to law officerswhen a convicted sex offender moves into a neighborhood. Tier Two is classifiedas “moderate-risk” and mandates notification to places where children are likely tobe, such as schools, day care centers, and parks, as well as to legal authorities. TierThree is made up of “high-risk” offenders who have a strong likelihood of repeatingthe crime. In this case, sexual offenders may be required to distribute flyers and runads in newspapers in addition to notifying school, communities, and the police.Most police departments have databases of known sexual offenders that can beaccessed by parents or other interested parties, and most states now provide Internetaccess to sexual offender registries. Some states have passed laws that allow au-thorities to hold known sexual offenders who are likely to repeat their crimes instate psychiatric institutions even after criminal sentences have been served.

Parents and the police generally applaud Megan’s Law, but critics of the lawargue that it violates the rights of sexual offenders who have served their sentences.Even supporters agree that it only affects a small number of sexual offenders be-cause most children who are sexually assaulted know the offender. Opinions onwhether Megan’s Law has been successful are divided. In March 1998, U.S. Newsand World Report reported that 22 percent of sexual offenders had repeated crimesbefore Megan’s Law went into effect, and the number dropped by only 3 percentafter enactment of the law. While the difference may seem small, it represents anumber of children who were saved from being sexually assaulted by strangers. Seealso: Child Rape; Pedophilia.

Suggested Reading: “Megan’s Law: Community Notification for the Release of Sex Of-fenders,” Criminal Justice Ethics (Summer–Fall 1995): 3–5; Bonnie Steinbeck, “A PolicyPerspective,” Criminal Justice Ethics (Summer–Fall 1995): 4–8.

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

MEILI, TRISHA. See Central Park Jogger.

MENTAL DISABILITIES, PEOPLE WITH 127

MEMOIRS. Memoirs of rape have come to form their own small, if growing,subgenre. Maya Angelou’s memoir of childhood rape and its consequences waspublished in 1970, but most rape memoirs are more recent, indicating perhapsincreasing openness about the subject.

A theme of many memoirs is that of breaking silence, with the goal not only ofasserting oneself in the face of a crime that threatened erasure but also of helpingothers. Memoirists note that victims of rape often remain anonymous, but thoughanonymity can be protective, it also permits some myths about rape and rape vic-tims to remain in place. Memoirists frequently trace the process of recovery, as itis linked to speaking about their experience. Philosopher Susan Brison titles her2002 memoir Aftermath and takes up broader problems of trauma, memory, andviolence. Many memoirists focus on recovery and discuss their experiences in psy-chotherapy and self-defense courses. Several memoirs chart experiences with thelegal prosecution of their assailants.

While most memoirs focus on one woman’s story, there are significant exceptions.In writing about the impact of his wife’s rape on their family, Jamie Kalven pointsout that violence has secondary victims. Charlotte Pierce-Baker begins her collectionof black women’s memoirs and testimonies of sexual violence with her own storyand draws attention to the so-far predominantly white, middle-class authorship ofrape memoirs. She also makes clear that for women of color speaking about sexualviolence still has different dynamics and historical resonance than it does for whitewomen. See also: Central Park Jogger; Child Rape; Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Suggested Reading: Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (New York: Bantam,1983); Susan Brison, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2002); Jamie Kalven, Working with Available Light: A Family’sWorld after Violence (New York: Norton, 1999); Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Surviving the Si-lence: Black Women’s Stories of Rape (New York: Norton, 1998).

SARA MURPHY

MENTAL DISABILITIES, PEOPLE WITH. People with mental retardation andother developmental disabilities are at a greater risk of sexual victimization. Peoplewith mental retardation are often unable to choose to stop abuse due to a lack ofunderstanding of what is happening during abuse, a need of acceptance from theircaregiver, or a dependent relationship with the abuser. People with mental retar-dation may not realize that sexual abuse is abusive, unusual, or illegal. Conse-quently, they may never tell anyone about sexually abusive situations. They areoften fearful to talk openly about such painful experiences due to the risk of notbeing believed or taken seriously, and they typically learn not to question caregiversor others in authority. Sexual abuse consists of sexually inappropriate and noncon-sensual actions, such as exposure to sexual materials (such as pornography), theuse of inappropriate sexual remarks/language, not respecting the privacy or physicalboundaries of a child or individual, fondling, exhibitionism, oral sex, and forcedsexual intercourse.

More than 90 percent of people with developmental disabilities will experiencesexual abuse at some point in their lives. The likelihood of rape is staggering:15,000 to 19,000 of people with developmental disabilities are raped each year inthe United States. Sexual abuse causes harmful psychological, physical, and behav-ioral effects. Individuals who experience long-term abuse by a known, trusted adult

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at an early age suffer more severe damage compared to those whose abuse is per-petrated by someone not well known to the victim, begins later in life, and is lessfrequent and nonviolent. Both cases require attention and can benefit from thera-peutic counseling. Research suggests that those most likely to abuse a victim withdevelopmental disabilities are those who are known by the victim, such as familymembers, acquaintances, residential care staff, transportation providers, and per-sonal caretakers.

Signs of sexual abuse include:

• Physical signs. Bruises in genital areas, genital discomfort, unexplained pregnancy,sexually transmitted diseases, signs of physical abuse, torn or missing clothing.

• Behavioral signs. Avoids specific setting, avoids specific adults, substance abuse,withdrawal, excessive crying spells, regression, sleep disturbances, disclosure, poorself-esteem, noncompliance, eating disorders, resists exam, self-destructive behavior,headaches, seizures, learning difficulty, sexually inappropriate behavior.

• Circumstantial signs. Alcohol or drug abuse by caregiver or caregiver who exhibitsexcessive or inappropriate eroticism, previous history of abuse, seeks isolated contactwith and has strong preference for children, pornography usage.

Experts conclude that the first step in reducing the occurrence of sexual abuse isrecognizing the magnitude of the problem. Abusers typically abuse as many as 70people before ever getting caught. Without reporting, there can be no prosecutionof offenders or treatment for victims. Underreporting of sexually abusive incidentsinvolving people with disabilities has in the past, and continues to be, a majorobstacle in preventing sexual abuse. Reporting can be increased through educatingindividuals with disabilities and service providers, improving investigation and pros-ecution, and creating a safe environment that allows victims to disclose. Finally,employment policies regarding caregivers need updating. See also: Consent; Hos-pitals and Nursing Homes.

Suggested Reading: D. Sobsey, Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities:The End of Silent Acceptance? (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1994); “People with MentalRetardation and Sexual Abuse,”ARC’s, Q&A, http://www.thearc.org/faqs/Sexabuse.html.

FLAVIA NELSON

MICHIGAN V. LUCAS. In Michigan v. Lucas, 500 U.S. 145 (1991), the U.S. Su-preme Court struck down a per se rule that the preclusion of evidence of a rapevictim’s prior sexual relationship with a criminal defendant violates the defendant’sSixth Amendment rights. The Court held that preclusion could occur if it servedlegitimate interests and that decisions as to the appropriateness of preclusion whena defendant fails to comply with a valid discovery rule must be made on a case-by-case basis.

Michigan’s “rape shield” statute prohibited defendants from introducing evidenceof an alleged rape victim’s prior sexual conduct. However, pursuant to a statutoryexception, evidence of the victim’s past sexual conduct with the defendant was notprohibited as long as the defendant filed a written motion to introduce the evidencewithin 10 days of arraignment. The trial court had the discretion to hold an incamera hearing to determine the admissibility of the defendant’s evidence.

Lucas, who was charged with criminal sexual conduct, had not complied withthe statute’s notice requirements, but his lawyer nevertheless tried to present evi-dence at trial of a prior sexual relationship between his client and the alleged victim.

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The trial court rejected that attempt. In reversing the trial court’s decision, theMichigan Court of Appeals invoked a per se rule that the preclusion of evidenceof a rape victim’s prior sexual relationship with a criminal defendant was in vio-lation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment protections.

In its majority opinion, the Supreme Court struck down that per se rule, explain-ing that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights are not without limitation, and theymay be set aside to accommodate other legitimate interests. The Court noted thatthe Michigan statute protected rape victims from surprise, harassment, and unnec-essary invasions of privacy and gave prosecutors notice to investigate whether priorrelationships existed. Without determining whether preclusion was justified in thisparticular case, the Court stated that the appellate court could not adopt a per serule making preclusion unconstitutional in all cases and therefore sent the case backwith instructions for the appellate court to decide whether the facts of the caseshowed that such preclusion had violated Lucas’s Sixth Amendment rights. See also:Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn; Rape Shield Laws; Rape Trials.

Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000).

GREGORY M. DUHL

MORNING-AFTER PILL. Classified as emergency contraception (EC) and usedafter intercourse, the morning-after pill is actually two pills taken in a series. Themost common EC pills available in the United States are Preven and Plan B. Prevencontains high dosages of hormones estrogen and progestin, but Plan B containsonly progestin. Progestin-only pills are more effective, and the risk of nausea islower. A dozen other brands are available with slightly varying hormone propor-tions, but their application does not differ from that of Preven or Plan B. One doseis administered within 72 hours of an unplanned conception, and a follow-up doseshould be taken 12 hours later. The effectiveness of this birth control method de-pends on administration time. Although research indicates that the method remainseffective even after the 72-hour window, specialists agree that the treatment is moresuccessful the earlier it is initiated. The effectiveness rate within one day after coitusis as high as 99 percent.

Within the first three days of a sexual assault, medical care is critical. Besidesobtaining information on EC options, patients should be examined for sexuallytransmitted diseases and injuries. Although Preven and Plan B have the Food andDrug Administration’s approval (1998 and 1999, respectively), not all hospitals inthe United States provide EC services to rape victims.

A debate about the legitimacy of the pill is fueled by questions about how itworks, when it should be used, and who should take it. EC is endorsed by itsadvocates as a safe and effective solution to unplanned pregnancies resulting fromunprotected sex, rape, and incest. A frequent argument in favor of EC is that itcould prevent at least half of all abortions in the United States. However, anti-abortion groups counter that since its exact mechanism is unknown, it is not clearwhether the pill serves as prevention or abortion. Among theories about its func-tioning is that it prevents ovulation or stops fertilization. But there also remains thecontroversial possibility that the pill prevents an already fertilized egg from beingimplanted in the uterus, which would, in practice, mean abortion. Moreover, be-sides a number of side effects, such as nausea and weight gain, the use of oral

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contraceptives may be linked to a high incidence of blood-clotting disorders. EC isnot recommended for women over 35, women with a history of high blood pres-sure, diabetes, clotting disorders, or women in advanced pregnancies. Nevertheless,EC remains a valuable resource for rape victims. See also: Pregnancy.

Suggested Reading: Janelle Brown, “High Noon for the Morning-After Pill,” Salon.comLife, 2001, http://archive.salon.com/mast/feature/2001/06/20/pill; Anna Glasier, “EmergencyPostcoital Contraception,” New England Journal of Medicine 337 (October 9, 1997):1058, http://www.healthunit.org/physicians/contraception/Emergency%20Postcoital%20Contraception-NEJM.pdf; Nathan Seppa, “Non-Estrogen Morning-After Pill Works Best,”Science News Online, 1998, http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/8_15_98/fob3.htm.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

MOVIES. See Films, Foreign; Films, U.S.

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER. See Dissociative Identity Disorder.

MURDER. Murder is intimately related to rape and can manifest itself as a reactionto rape, as an element of the crime, and as punishment for it. Race often plays acentral role in the relationship between rape and murder. Rape-murder has alsobecome a common weapon in genocidal conflicts.

Murder can be committed in self-defense when a woman (or man) is threatenedwith sexual assault. Court practice has generally sanctioned the use of deadly forceby men to prevent forcible sodomy, but it has not always applied the same stan-dards to women. This difference results from the belief that violence is not appro-priate behavior for women. In addition, traditional views of women as objects havereinforced the perception that violating a man’s body is the more egregious offense.Furthermore, because battered women frequently have a history of intimacy withtheir attackers, the courts often treat their claims of self-defense from rape withskepticism. Women are thus held to higher standards than men to prove they re-acted to a threat of imminent danger.

Murder can also be part of the crime of rape. Between 1976 and 1994, approx-imately 1.5 percent of all murder cases in the United States involved sexual assaultor rape. Sexual assault that results in murder is a felony crime punishable by lifein prison or the death penalty. The rape and subsequent murder of a person, usuallya woman, is seen by American society as particularly heinous and subject to harsherpunishment than each crime would be separately. In the majority of cases wherethe death penalty is imposed in rape-murders, the victims and offenders were strang-ers. National averages, however, indicate that most rape-murders are committed byacquaintances or family members. The severity of the death sentence suggests thatrape-murders committed by strangers are perceived as more serious offenses thanthose committed by acquaintances.

In sentencing, rape-murder diminishes the significance of the rape itself. When arape victim is murdered, she can no longer speak for herself, and thus her credibilityis not questioned, even in cases where evidence of rape is inconclusive. Furthermore,in cases of rape-murder, stereotypical understandings of rape (that it is committedby a stranger, that it is interracial, that a woman must resist, etc.) are dismissedunder the extenuating circumstance of murder. Thus, rape is seen as an aggravating

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factor in the commission of murder that makes the offender eligible for the deathpenalty.

Race plays a central role both in the punishments for rape-murder and in violentreactions to rape. In cases of rape-murder, more severe penalties are often imposedagainst a black offender whose victim was white, reinforcing the assumption thata black woman’s rape-murder is somehow less serious than a white woman’s. Morerape-murders, however, involve white defendants than other types of murder, andrape-murder victims are more often white and female than murder victims in gen-eral. The perception that rape-murder is committed by an “underclass” may con-tribute to the endurance of racial (and economic) rape-murder stereotypes.

Race has also led to murder in reaction to rape. In racially charged atmospheressuch as South Africa and the American South, accusations of rape, particularly ofa white woman by a black man, could lead to violent retribution and the lynchingof the suspected perpetrator. A “rape scare” in Natal, Africa, in the late nineteenthcentury, for instance, resulted in vigilante justice against those black men thoughtto have committed rape and sparked legislation making a white woman’s rape acapital offense.

Finally, rape and murder frequently occur together during times of war. Womenhave been the targets of mass rape and murder throughout the violent genocidalconflicts of the twentieth century. During the 1937–1938 Rape of Nanking, forinstance, thousands of Chinese women were raped and killed by Japanese soldiers.Similar atrocities occurred in Bangladesh and Serbia, among others, where womenwere held in camps, repeatedly raped, and murdered. The sexual assault and murderof women has also been used to attack male members of different ethnic groups.In such conflicts, women are seen as male property. Thus, rape-murder in genocidessymbolically reinforces the impotence of one ethnic group and the dominance ofthe other. Rape as a weapon in war can have serious effects on its victims as well.The guilt, shame, and humiliation women experience as rape victims could leadthem to commit suicide but also to murder any children who result from rape. Seealso: Genocide; Rape-Lynch Scenario; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists.

Suggested Reading: Anne Llewellyn Barstow, ed., War’s Dirty Secret: Rape, Prostitution,and Other Crimes against Women (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000); Phyllis Crocker,“Crossing the Line: Rape-Murder and the Death Penalty,” Ohio Northern University LawReview 26.3 (2000): 689–723.

SHARON A. KOWALSKY

MY LAI. On March 16, 1968, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the U.S.Army, conducted a search-and-destroy mission on the South Vietnamese village ofSon My, which included the subvillage of My Lai. The soldiers, who had been toldthe village was an enemy stronghold, destroyed everything they found there. Theymurdered and raped villagers, killed cattle, destroyed food stores, and burned huts.Estimates of the number of women, children, and elderly murdered range from 175to 400. The exact number of rapes committed is unknown; however, multiple rapesoccurred, including vaginal, anal, oral, and gang rape.

The soldiers of Company C were told the assault would be a chance to repay theenemy for earlier casualties suffered by the unit. In fact, the soldiers mainly en-countered unarmed villagers. More important, the leaders of the company hadtaken no disciplinary action against soldiers who had engaged in acts of violence,

132 MYTHOLOGY

including rapes, countless times before. Several of the men were known to rapeVietnamese women at every opportunity, and at least one Company C soldier wasgiven penicillin as a precaution against venereal disease every time the companywent on a field mission.

A cover-up of the events at My Lai began almost immediately after the raid. Thearmy reported the mission as a successful military operation. The soldiers of Com-pany C were ordered not to discuss the assault on My Lai. One soldier, whoplanned to write his congressman about the incident, was ordered not to do so.Some of the film used by an army photographer accompanying Company C wasconfiscated, but he managed to keep the film from his personal camera, whichcontained photographs of the massacre. These photographs were later published inLife magazine to support stories of the incident.

Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr., leader of 2nd platoon of Company C, wascharged with the murder of “109 Oriental human beings” in September 1969.Calley was court-martialed in 1970, found guilty, and sentenced to life at hardlabor. However, Calley’s conviction created a public outcry among people whosupported the war. In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon ordered Calley held underhouse arrest. Calley’s sentence was reduced several times, and he was paroled in1974. Captain Ernest Medina, commander of Company C, was tried and acquittedof all charges related to the raid. No one else was charged with murder or rape inthe My Lai Massacre. See also: U.S. Military; War Crimes; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: The American Experience, Vietnam: In the Trenches, the My Lai Mas-sacre, PBS/WGBH, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mylai.html (1983,1997), Michal R. Belknap, The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002); Susan Brown-miller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975);Douglas Linder, Famous American Trials: The My Lai Courts-Martial, 1970, 1999, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/mylai.htm.

ERIC SKINNER

MYTHOLOGY. Myth is a complex cultural construction that contains a sacredstory and, therefore, is based on the irruption of a divine factor into human life. Itis the retelling of a creation event, usually occurring in primitive times, and capableof explaining the world as a supernatural phenomenon. Since mythology is undis-putedly linked to the original source of mankind, and to the primitive history of asociety, it shall not surprise that sexual references are abundant in its genealogicaldescriptions.

The frequency of rape in classical times can be explained as an assertion of mas-culinity. In raping situations, women (or young men, depending on the case) aredegraded as powerless creatures in front of the strength of a male attacker. In Greekand Roman mythology, rape is frequently presented through the imposition of in-equality: Sexual physical violence is often shown between a god and a human,preferably a potent male god and a young virgin girl. Only a very few instances arerevealed in which the rapist and the raped involved in this conduct are both divin-ities (Hephaiston and Athena, for example). The religious category of mythicalconstructions, as well as its social purpose in antiquity, does not allow findingexamples of rape dealing exclusively with sex between humans.

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The general inequality that lays at the basis of rape in myth is noticeable if onetakes into account that most of the times the male god acting with aggressive im-pulse presents himself metamorphosed into a brute: This is the case of mighty Zeusattacking Europa as a bull, Leda as a swan, or Persephone as a snake; Poseidon asa bull raping Canace or as a dolphin forcing Melantho, and Apollo as a snake anda tortoise acting against Dryope. According to the mythical versions, these confusedgirls are usually placed in lonely environments lacking protection and where theywill not be discovered right away. The masculine appearance under a bestial aspectis used in various plots as a way of causing the victim to get deceived before thecommission of the sexual offense. The seduction of women by animals, in many ofthese moral stories, might be studied from a traditional view, according to whichfemales are seen as passionate and sometimes attracted to the virility of animals(cf. Dryope or Leda).

Since the female perspective, as such, was feared to be a real threat to socialstructures, girls could be themselves metaphorically assimilated to beasts as well. Inthis sense, some myths deal with the transformation of young women, and not ofgods, into animals: Taygete as a deer is raped by Zeus, and Psamathe as a seal isseized by Aeacus. Elsewhere, girls tend to be presented as real shape shifters, as ithappens with Metis and Thetis when they are snatched by Zeus and Peleus, re-spectively.

In a few examples, however, some classicists and historians of religion perceivethat this unbalanced interaction is left aside, due to the fact that man and womanare equally transformed into beasts just before the intercourse: It is the case ofZeus’s rape of Asterie, which is committed when he becomes an eagle and she is aquail; also Theophane as a bird is raped by a ram, which is born from Poseidon’smetamorphosis. Nevertheless, even in these situations, this apparent balance is re-ally false, since the two categories of animals are always different enough, in sizeand behavior, as to justify the violent approach and the control of men over theirvictims.

The possible consent of women in these mythical rapes is ambiguous, and someauthors suggest that females in myth, instead of being unwillingly attacked, arerather seduced or abducted. Scattered evidence does not supply any conclusive an-swer on this. It can only be stated that if myth becomes a way of consolidatingsocial values, both in Greece and Rome, the recurrence of the topic of rape coulddemonstrate certain aspects intrinsically related to the ideology of classical societies:In male-oriented communities, feminine figures seem to be deeply attached to theorigin of offspring, and manly gods need to be shown as imposing over nature andcontrolling humans. Thus, the analysis of rape in mythology can demonstrate howsexual attitudes ought to be identified in accordance to the principles and rules thatform the necessary background for the persistence of a common morality, in par-ticular, and of society, in general. See also: Literature, World and American.

Suggested Reading: Susan Deacy and Karen F. Pierce, eds., Rape in Antiquity (London:Duckworth, 1997); Lin Foxhall and John Salmon, eds., Thinking Men: Masculinity and ItsSelf-Representation in the Classical Tradition (New York: Routledge, 1998); Susan Deacyand Karen F. Pierce, eds., When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in ClassicalAntiquity (New York: Routledge, 1998); Angeliki E. Laiou, ed., Consent and Coercion toSex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies (Washington, DC: Dumbarton OaksResearch Library and Collection & Harvard University Press, 1993); Rosanna Omitowoju,

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Rape and the Politics of Consent in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2002); Ralph Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, eds., Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Couragein Classical Antiquity, Mnemosyne Suppl. 238 (Boston: Brill, 2003).

EMILIANO J. BUIS

MYTHS. See Rape Myths.

N

NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY (NCVS). The NCVS was es-tablished in 1973, and it is one of two statistical programs the U.S. Department ofJustice uses to measure crime. The purpose of the NCVS is to gather empirical dataabout both reported and unreported crimes suffered by victims and/or households.Because many crimes are never reported, this survey complements the UniformCrime Reports collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and provides ad-ditional information on the number of crimes committed and the level of victimi-zation in this country each year. Twice annually, approximately 45,000 U.S.households are surveyed and asked about their experiences with rape, sexual as-sault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft.

The survey is a program of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), under the De-partment of Justice, but it is administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. The “NationalCrime Victimization Survey Resource Guide” notes that the four objectives of thesurvey are “(1) to develop information about the victims and consequences of crime,(2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) toprovide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisonsover time and types of areas.” These objectives, when fulfilled, provide researcherswith data on victims, including information on age, sex, race, and whether or notthey knew their attacker, and data on crimes, such as where and when they occurredand whether weapons were involved. These findings make it possible to better studycrime in America.

The BJS publishes reports and statistical tables each year detailing the informationcollected by the NCVS. For example, the 2002 NCVS notes a slight decline in rapesand sexual assaults from the previous year. In 2001, there were 248,250 rapes andsexual assaults, and in the 2002, there were 247,730. But this is a big decline fromthe 485,000 rapes and sexual assaults reported in 1993. However, the NCVS doesnot interview children age 11 and younger. The 2002 report also notes that rapevictims are more willing to report their attacks to the police than they were in yearspast. See also: Rape Statistics.

136 NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN (NOW)

Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000); “National Crime Victimi-zation Survey Resource Guide,” National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/NCVS; “New Reports Shows Dramatic Increase in Willingness toReport Rapes to Police,” Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), http://www.rainn.org/news2002.html.

ARTHUR HOLST

NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN (NOW). Founded in 1966 as agroup dedicated to achieving women’s equality, NOW gained international recog-nition during the 1970s as it relentlessly campaigned in support of the equal rightsamendment to the U.S. Constitution. This struggle for economic equality validatedNOW as a significant grassroots movement. In 2003, with more than 500,000members, it is now the largest feminist activist organization in America, with adefined mission to eliminate all forms of sexism in society, so that women canachieve full equality with men. With a broad economic, political, legal, and socialchange agenda, NOW’s stated priorities include antiracism, reproductive freedoms,abortion rights, constitutional amendments to guarantee equality, and the termi-nation of all forms of harassment and violence against women (battering, murder,and all manifestations of the act of rape).

To agitate for social change to stop rapes throughout America, NOW employsa five-part strategy: direct action, legislative changes, electoral involvement, lob-bying, and lawsuits/prosecutions. Mass demonstrations, such as the “Take Backthe Night” marches throughout the country, raised awareness on the magnitude ofthe problem of rape. In lobbying for legislative changes, NOW’s electoral strategyevolved from attempting to persuade elected officials to support their cause to directinvolvement in electing men and women who support the goals of the feministorganization. With more sympathetic supporters throughout all levels of govern-ment, NOW has been instrumental in advancing a comprehensive framework forthe definition of rape, as well as the recognition, prosecution, and perpetrator stig-matization of the crime. Legislation, such as the 1994 Violence against Women Act,was viewed as an important step to ensuring that rape is both recognized andprosecuted as a criminal act. As only a very small number of the rapes in the UnitedStates are reported, NOW believes in the importance of educating women to rec-ognize and reject this form of violence in their lives. NOW’s awareness programshelp women to understand that any type of rape (by a husband, a date, or astranger) constitutes a violent crime. For instance, while marriage implies consentfor sex, the lobby group educates women that forced, nonconsensual intermaritalsex is a crime. Additionally, this feminist movement directly mobilizes the mem-bership to protest all violent attacks on women and to raise public awareness thatrape is both a criminal offense and a socially unacceptable behavior. Therein, NOWdisavows all societal myths that are sympathetic to the perpetrator, such as the ideathat women dress in a provocative manner to encourage the rape—to NOW thisis simply the rationalization of a criminal act.

In addition to their many activities to agitate for social change against rape,NOW works to provide resources to the women who are victims. As an earlysupporter of rape crises centers and women’s shelters, the movement helps womenreact to, and recover from, rape. Assistance services for victims also extend to helpin levying charges and prosecuting rapists in all sectors of society, even those tra-

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ditionally closed to scrutiny from the general public. For instance, NOW deter-minedly criticizes the Department of Defense for continually ignoring and denyingreported incidents of sexual assault, rape, and harassment and demands that theabuses within the U.S. Armed Forces are to be investigated by civilians from outsideof the self-protective hierarchy.

After four decades of targeted activism, NOW understands that the struggleagainst rape, on behalf of all women, is not yet over. The organization cites statisticssuch as the facts that 20 percent of secondary school women are physically andsexually abused by a date, that only a minority of stranger and date rapes arereported annually, and that a significant problem still exists with marital rape.NOW continues with their five-point activist strategy to increase awareness and todecrease the incidents of rape, such that it will be widely recognized, charged, andprosecuted as a socially unacceptable and violent crime against women. See also:Feminist Movement.

Suggested Reading: American Medical Association, Report 7 of the Council on ScientificAffairs: Violence between Intimates, January 2000, http://www.ama-assn.org; Toni Cara-billo, Judith Meuli, and June Bundy Csida, The Feminist Chronicles: 1953–1993 (LosAngeles: Women’s Graphics, 1993); National Organization for Women’s Web site, http://www.now.org; Merril D. Smith, ed., “Introduction: Studying Rape in American History,”in Sex without Consent: Rape and Sexual Coercion in America (New York: New YorkUniversity Press, 2001).

LAURIE JACKLIN

NATIVE AMERICANS. Sexual violence was not unknown in Native North Amer-ica prior to the European invasion, although rape was a rare occurrence in manysocieties. Interracial rape became a commonplace experience for Native Americanwomen and a rallying point for tribal resistance following the invasion of theirhomelands, however. While European and Anglo-American societies dismissed ac-counts of sexual assault, or wrongly attributed them to Native women’s supposedlicentiousness, Native people, particularly Native women, struggled to mitigate theeffects of their rapes and to prevent further sexual violence.

While rape was institutionalized in a few Native societies, men rarely sexuallyassaulted women in most Native societies. Images of rape do not abound in indig-enous art and material culture, and the oral and written historical record givesfleeting testimony to the occurrence of rape within many Native cultures. The prev-alence or absence of sexual violence reflected the socioeconomic status of women.For example, in the matrilineal and matrilocal cultures of the East in which womennot only determined clan membership but also grew and distributed corn, the staplecrop, men seem to have rarely raped. On the other hand, in the patrilineal culturesof the Plains in which women worked processing buffalo hides hunted and ownedby men, women were more likely to experience sexual violence. Among the Chey-enne, for instance, members of male warrior societies assaulted women, or “putthem on the prairie,” as part of their ritualized lifestyle. This escalation of sexualviolence likely coincided with the emergence of the male-dominated hunting culturethat developed following the introduction of the horse in the late seventeenth cen-tury. In other words, as women lost socioeconomic status, their vulnerability tosexual violence increased.

Because they considered rape to be an egregious violation, most Native societies

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harshly punished rapists. While the method and severity of punishment variedamong tribes, most communities considered rape a crime against the victim, andthe perpetrator was obliged to make peace with her and her kin. Thus, victims,often accompanied by their female kin or village women, meted out punishmentcollectively, or the survivor could accept payment as retribution. Most Native so-cieties do not seem to have punished or ostracized the victim, but victims in culturesthat valued virginity and chastity in women as an expression of familial honor,including many Plains tribes, could have suffered a loss in status.

European invaders and their American successors used rape as a means of con-quest. Misinterpreting the ways that Native American women dressed and behavedas a solicitation, many European men assumed that Native American women weresexually available, even when the women refused their advances. European custom,labeling women as spoils of war, reinforced European men’s belief in their accessto Native women’s bodies as a right of conquest. Accounts of Christopher Colum-bus’s expedition to the Caribbean include mass rape in addition to mass murder.While matrilineal kinship systems accorded Native women in the East considerablesexual freedom, Englishmen often took advantage of Native women’s sexual hos-pitality. In New France (Canada), too, traders and trappers often treated Nativewomen’s bodies as another commodity in the trade. In the American West, rape byAmerican miners, traders, and soldiers became so rampant by the late nineteenthcentury that a Northern Paiute woman, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, wrote sexualviolence into her autobiography as a key theme; she commented, “My people havebeen so unhappy for a long time they now wish to disincrease, instead of multiply.The mothers are afraid to have more children, for fear they shall have daughters,who are not safe even in their mother’s presence.” These sexual frontiers createdgray areas in which Native women could use their sexuality for their benefit butalso in which they could be horribly abused because of their sexuality. Among allthe cultural diversity and particular local circumstances, the one constant was thatvery few white men respected a Native woman’s right to say no to sexual inter-course.

While accepting many aspects of white culture, Native people did not adoptinterracial rape into their worldview as appropriate behavior, and they continuedto label rapists as sexual deviants and responded to mitigate and prevent rape in avariety of ways. Native people modified their seasonal cycle of hunting, gathering,and farming and their daily work patterns so that lone or small groups of womenwould not be likely targets for white men. Elders took closer care over adolescentgirls. Native leaders appealed to European and American leaders to keep unwantedmen away from their villages and camps. When communal and diplomatic solutionsfailed, Native men went to war to punish outsiders who violated their value systems,although because of common cultural rules forbidding warriors from engaging insexual relations, Native men did not usually retaliate sexually. White female cap-tives in the East remarked that they were not sexually assaulted by war parties, butsome Plains warriors were reported to have raped white captives.

Rape has continued to affect Native American communities in disproportionatelyhigh numbers. In 1999, the Department of Justice reported that American Indianswere victims of rape at 3.5 times the rate of other racial groups; Native Americansremain more impoverished than any other racial group. Moreover, unlike otherracial groups, someone of another race assaulted 90 percent of Native Americanrape victims.

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Rape has continued to be a prominent theme in the work of Native Americanartists and authors. In her memoir Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog addressedsexual interracial and intraracial sexual violence on a modern Indian reservation.In her 2000 film Backroads, Cree filmmaker Shirley Cheechoo gave powerful visualimage to the destructive power of sexual violence in Native communities. Whileworking in different mediums across centuries, Native women confirm the negativeimpact of rape and their continued resistance to it.

Suggested Reading: Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman (New York: HarperPerennial, 1990);Rayna Greene, “The Pocahontas Perplex: The Image of Indian Women in American Cul-ture,” in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, ed. Ellen CarolDuBois (New York: Routledge, 1990), 15–21; Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life among thePiutes (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1883; reprint, Reno: University of Nevada Press,1994); Carolyn Neithammer, Daughters of the Earth: The Lives and Legends of AmericanIndian Women (1977; New York: Touchstone, 1996); Theda Perdue, “Columbus MeetsPocahontas in the American South,” Southern Cultures 3 (1997): 4–21; Clifford E. Trafzerand Joel R. Hyer, eds., Exterminate Them! Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, andEnslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush (East Lansing: MichiganState University Press, 1999).

ROSE STREMLAU

NAZIS. Rape for the Nazis played a sinister role in what they wanted to achieve:namely, the humiliation and destruction of “inferior peoples” and the creation ofa master race. Technically, it was forbidden for a German to rape a Jew accordingto the Nuremberg race laws of 1935. These race laws issued a harsh prohibitionagainst what they called “race defilement.” The Nazis feared that Germans whohad sex with Jews would contaminate Aryan “blood.” There were times, however,when these laws were broken.

The first major reports of Nazi mob rape were directed against Jewish womenand occurred during Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, in 1938. The Kris-tallnacht became the model for the actions repeated in many towns once WorldWar II began. During the war, the Nazis marched into Polish or Russian villagesand looted homes, especially Jewish homes. Jewish girls were singled out for rape.They were often raped in front of their parents and siblings. If the girls resisted,they would be beaten. In general, all women were prey as the Nazis advanced intoPoland, Russia, and elsewhere. During the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal after thewar, the Russians reported, “Women and girls [were] vilely outraged in all theoccupied areas” (Brownmiller, 55).

Surgeon-gynecologists of the Jewish ghettos regularly gave antitetanus shots tovictims of Nazi rape. One Jewish doctor in Warsaw reported, “In one mirror shopin Swietokerska Street there was a mass raping of Jewish girls. The Germans seizedthe most beautiful and healthy girls in the streets and brought them in to packmirrors. After the work the girls were raped” (Brownmiller, 52). Another affidavittold of a similar event that occurred on another street in Warsaw, where “40 Jewishgirls were dragged into the house which was occupied by German officers. There. . . the girls were ordered to undress and to dance for the amusement of theirtormentors. Beaten, abused, and raped, the girls were not released till 3 a.m.”(Brownmiller, 52). Sala Pawlowicz, a survivor of the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, writes in her memoirs of the Nazis making nightly swoops in her German-occupied Polish village of Lask in search of young Jewish girls.

140 NEW YORK RADICAL FEMINISTS (NYRF)

German documents captured at the end of the war and presented at the Nurem-berg war crimes tribunal in 1946 corroborated the regular use of rape as a weaponof terror. In some instances, German commanders used cases of rape against theNazi secret police, or SS. In early 1940, a German army commander in Polandcompiled a long list of complaints against the SS. One of the complaints filed in-volved two SS policemen who dragged two teenage Jewish girls out of bed. It wasreported that one of the girls was raped in a Polish cemetery. Reportedly, theGerman army commander who wrote the report was upset over the “amateurish”way that the SS was attempting to deal with the “Jewish problem.”

The Nazis also used rape as a means of military retaliation or reprisal. Accountssurfaced of punitive measures taken by the Germans in occupied France during thesummer of 1944 because of the presence of French resistance fighters. One regionof French resistance fighting was Vecours. Stories there told of a raid on the villageof St. Donat. It was reported that “54 women or young girls from 13 to 50 yearsof age were raped by the maddened soldiers” (Brownmiller, 56). A raid in Nice inJuly 1944 also concluded with similar results.

Women in concentration camps were more often sexually humiliated as opposedto violated. In the concentration camps, women were at risk of being assaulted, butrape by Nazi officers was rare because of the prohibition of Rassenschande, orinterracial sexual relations. Women in the camps were also often physically unat-tractive to the Nazis, and the officers were monitored more closely by their superiorsthan they were in urban areas.

Nazi rape was more likely to occur in towns and cities, as opposed to concen-tration camps. Towns and cities were more unregulated than the concentrationcamps, and they also provided more opportunity for the Nazis to take revenge onthe population by means other than military warfare. The Nazis used rape forterror, retaliation, and sexual humiliation. See also: Ethnic Cleansing; Genocide.

Suggested Reading: Elizabeth R. Baer and Myrna Goldenberg, eds., Experience and Ex-pression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,2003); Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simonand Schuster, 1975); Katherine Morris, ed., Odyssey of Exile: Jewish Women Flee the Nazisfor Brazil (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996); Carol Rittner and John K. Roth,eds., Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust (New York: Praeger, 1993).

DAVID TREVINO

NEW YORK RADICAL FEMINISTS (NYRF). Formed in the fall of 1969, theNYRF raised public consciousness about rape in the United States. Because thepolice, hospitals, and society in general tended to blame women for rape, NYRFsought to redefine public understanding of rape as a crime “against” women, notan offense women brought on themselves. On January 24, 1971, NYRF held thefirst “Speak Out on Rape” where women who had been raped told their stories,illustrating that rape could happen to any women, not just those who dressed tooprovocatively, led men on, or wandered down dark alleys. Media coverage of thespeak-out publicized feminist perspectives on rape and recruited members to thegrowing antirape movement.

In April 1971, NYRF sponsored a conference about rape. From the experiencesthat women shared, NYRF realized that rape is a crime largely perpetrated byboyfriends and husbands. This revelation had a profound influence on American

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society where women had been taught to fear the stranger lurking in dark shadowsbut not the boy next door. NYRF inextricably tied the crime of rape to male dom-ination, seeing rape as one more patriarchal weapon used to oppress women.

As a result of their early activism, NRYF published Rape: The First Sourcebookfor Women, which outlined a feminist perspective on rape and an agenda for an-tirape activism. Members of NYRF, particularly Susan Brownmiller, became im-portant public figures in the feminist antirape movement, and the group itself canbe credited with helping to put this “hidden” crime on the public agenda.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1975); Noreen Connell and Cassandra Wilson, eds., Rape: TheFirst Sourcebook for Women (New York: New American Library, 1974).

MICHELLE MORAVEC

NEWSPAPERS. See Media.

O

OKINAWA RAPE CASE. One of the most notorious sex scandals in the U.S.Military, the Okinawa rape took place in 1995 on the Japanese island of Okinawa.On September 4, 1995, three U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa abducted a 12-year-old local schoolgirl, bound her by duct tape, beat, raped, and abandoned herin a sugarcane field. In March 1996, both Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and MarinePrivate First Class Rodrico Harp were sentenced to 7 years of prison, while MarinePrivate First Class Kendrick Ledet’s sentence was 6.5 years. All of the sentenceswere to be served in Japan. During the trial, the suspects pleaded guilty but gaveconflicting reports as to who instigated the incident, accusing each other of coercingthe abduction. At one point, Private Rodrico Harp recanted his confession, claimingit had been taken from him under duress.

The incident sent thousands of Japanese protesters to the streets. Their anger wasfurther stoked by the Status of Forces agreement between the United States andJapan. Under this agreement, the United States is not required to release suspectsto Japanese authorities until formal charges are presented. In the Okinawa rapecase, too, the U.S. military chose not to immediately allow Japanese police to takethe three suspects into custody. Although the suspects were regularly transportedto the local authorities for questioning and were eventually convicted, the scandalturned into a political issue, with some Japanese politicians calling for the with-drawal of American troops from Japan.

Currently, similar incidents by the military personnel continue to deepen resent-ment toward U.S. presence in the region. In July 2001, U.S. Air Force Staff SergeantTimothy Woodland was charged with raping a Japanese woman. Woodland ad-mitted having sex with her but claimed their sexual relationship was consensual.The victim denied that, and in March 2002 a Japanese court found Woodland guiltyand sentenced him to 32 months in jail.

Most incidents of this nature happen on the island of Okinawa, as over a halfof U.S. military deployed in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa Prefecture. But U.S.Armed Forces must contend with an equally bad reputation in South Korea, where

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sex scandals have taken place, sparking anti-American protests in the streets. Seealso: Tailhook Convention of 1991; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Readings: Edward Desmond, “Rape of an Innocent, Dishonor in the Ranks,”Time, October 2, 1995, 51–52; Justin McCurry, “U.S. Airmen Questioned about Okin-awa Rape,” The Guardian, June 30, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,514865,00.html.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

ORAL SEX. The National Women’s Study definition of completed rape is “anynonconsensual sexual penetration of the victim’s vagina, anus, or mouth by anobject or a perpetrator’s penis, finger, or tongue that involved the use of force.” Bythis definition, and numerous others, forced oral sex does constitute rape. Still, somewomen who have been screened as potential rape victims are not told that forcibleoral sex should be included in the definition of rape and therefore fail to reportsuch experiences to screeners. Many victims of oral sex rape are not just female butmales as well, particularly underage males.

On pornographic Internet sites and magazines, there are numerous depictions ofwomen being forcibly raped with oral sex. Most of the captions included with oralsex rape in such pornography depict women as sexual objects with no feelings. Themen committing oral sex rape and the pornographers who write the captions andtake the pictures treat women as dehumanized objects. Men who have committedoral sex rape see that type of sex in movies or magazines. They have sexual fantasiesabout it and want to mimic that action. Some pornographic magazines even ad-vocate that men use their penises to silence women. The advice that men use fellatioto silence women amounts to advocating oral rape. This has motivated some peopleto accuse the media of inciting and causing violence like oral sex rape. Forced oralsex is a form of rape itself and should be treated as completed rape. See also:Advertising; Anal Sex; Consent; Male Rape.

Suggested Reading: James F. Hodgson and Debra S. Kelley, Sexual Violence: Policies, Prac-tices, and Challenges in the United States and Canada (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002); LauraLederer, ed., Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (New York; William Morrow,1980); Diana E.H. Russell, Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny, and Rape(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998); Diana E.H. Russell and Rebecca M. Bolen, The Epidemicof Rape and Child Sexual Abuse in the United States (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000).

DAVID TREVINO

P

PAGLIA, CAMILLE (1947– ). A literary scholar, feminist critic, self-declared“Amazon feminist,” and confessing Madonna fan, Camille Paglia has repeatedlyengaged matters of sexuality and violence and is known particularly for her bookSexual Personae (1990) and her provocative interventions into feminist debatesduring the 1990s. Considering these debates too academic and predominated by acoy ideology of political correctness, Paglia has aimed to rethink the feminist agendaby revising cultural history and reclaiming popular culture as an alternative “street-wise” political practice. Her several essays on sexual violence and rape can beunderstood in the context of both her binary conception of cultural history—herclear-cut division between nature and culture—and her call for a sex-positive fem-inism that stresses personal agency and responsibility. Proposing a “revampedfeminism,” Paglia distances herself from liberal feminism’s claim for equality beforethe law, from the cultural relativism of gender studies as well as from the so-calledradical feminist perspectives of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, whoserape crisis discourse and encompassing definition of rape Paglia rejects. Consideringmasculinity a (sexually) aggressive as well as creative force, and accepting the het-erosexist sadomasochistic sexual dynamic projected by early sexology and part ofpsychoanalysis as the natural order of things, Paglia insists that women need toaccept the “fundamental, unchanging truth about sex” and exercise self-awarenessand self-control. Grounded in a polarized, universalizing, and ahistorical conceptionof gender, Paglia’s critique of the feminist debate on sexual violence remains polit-ically controversial.

Suggested Reading: Camille Paglia, “Now Law in the Arena” and “The Culture Wars,” inher Vamps and Tramps: New Essays (New York: Vintage, 1994), 19–94, 95–126; CamillePaglia, “Rape and the Modern Sex War” and “The Rape Debate Continued,” in her Sex,Art and American Culture (New York: Vintage, 1992), 49–55, 55–74; Camille Paglia, SexualPersonae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (New York: Vintage, 1990).

SABINE SIELKE

PATRIARCHY 145

PATERNITY TESTING. Paternity testing is a method of establishing the geneticrelationship between a child and an alleged father. Apart from cases of pregnanciesresulting from rape, where it is used to identify the offender, paternity identificationtesting is commonly sought by mothers trying to prove the fatherhood of men whorefuse to pay child support.

Originally, parentage testing involved blood analysis, which involved comparingblood samples for the presence of antigens that determine a person’s blood type.An advantage of this method was that it served to reliably exclude candidates fora father. If a child possessed antigens not found in a putative father’s blood, thatman would be excluded as being the child’s biological father. But because an antigencan be found in many unrelated people, the presence of an antigen in the father’sand child’s blood is no guarantee of their actual genetic relatedness, and so thistest’s reliability is seriously limited.

Paternity testing has been significantly improved, thanks to the invention of DNAtesting. This method is based on the fact that each parent contributes half of achild’s DNA, and each half is a person’s unique signature, different from anybodyelse’s. If a man’s DNA markers are found in the child, that man cannot be ruledout as that child’s father. If their genetic patterns match, the probability that theyare father and child is more than 99 percent.

DNA tests are relatively simple and can be performed at home or at a hospital.Samples are made by taking a swab of skin cells inside the cheek. They are shippedto a laboratory to be analyzed and compared to each parent’s. Results are producedas either an inclusionary report (confirming the fatherhood) or an exclusionaryreport (ruling it out). See also: DNA Collection and Evidence.

Suggested Reading: Terrence Carmichael and Alexander Kuklin, How to DNA Test OurFamily Relationships? (Mountain View, CA: AceN Press, 2000); James R. Wronko, “WhatLitigators Should Know about DNA Testing,” New Jersey Lawyer, May 5, 1995, http://www.newjerseylawyer.org/articles/dnanjl.htm.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

PATRIARCHY. Patriarchy is a sociopolitical doctrine and cultural system that pos-its men above women. Thus the superiority of the male sex is a priori establishedby virtue of its physical attributes (i.e., strength, endurance) and intellectual abilities(i.e., decision making, ethical capacity).

In patriarchy, the superiority of men is passed from father to son in particularand from men to men in society in general. The social system, therefore, dependson the strong bonds between men as kinship and professional relations and less onthe relation between men and women. Even the familial structure, despite its bio-logical dependence on the female for procreation, puts down women as “the secondsex.”

Historically, patriarchy is well established, taking over from the tradition of ma-triarchy (“the cult of the mother”) in the prehistoric societies. Some ancient mythsdescribe the many ways in which female humans—as well as goddesses—wereabused by gods because of the superiority of the gods. The ancient Greek mythologyis an especially rich source of such examples: the kidnapping of Europa by Zeus,the elaborate rape of Leto, and others.

Another negative instance of a strong patriarchal tradition in the Middle Ages inEurope is the so-called prima note (“first night”), when on their wedding night

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some brides were deflowered by the father-in-law or the lord of the village. In thisway the actual rapes achieved the status of a “rightful” act that supposedly estab-lished the laws and traditions of a tribe and helped the son in performing his maritalfunction later.

The first subversive attempts to change the patriarchal order could be traced backto nineteenth-century Europe and the United States, when some women dared todefy patriarchy in search of social equality and political freedom. Despite the sig-nificant changes in the structure of certain cultures and many waves of the feministmovement in the Western countries from the 1960s and 1970s of the twentiethcentury until today, patriarchy is still a predominant form of sociocultural orga-nization. For religious or other reasons, many countries strongly support hard-linepatriarchy as the only viable social system, while the other countries struggle tocontinue the process of social, political, and economic emancipation of women. Seealso: Droit du seigneur; Tribal Customs and Laws.

Suggested Reading: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Tenth Anniversary Issue (New York:Routledge, 1999); Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1997); Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage,1997).


PEDOPHILIA. Pedophilia originates from the Greek words paidos, meaning“child,” and philia, meaning “love.” Pedophiles are characterized by their sexualattraction to children. The first scientist to use the term was the German Austriansexologist and physician Richard Krafft-Ebing. In his monograph Psychopatia Sex-ualis, published in 1886, pedophilia was defined as a psychosexual perversion, opento cure. To Krafft-Ebing, pedophilia could be caused by senility or other mentaldeficiencies. However, his British counterpart, Henry Havelock-Ellis, believed thatpedophilia should be seen as an extreme version of normal masculine sexuality. Theconcept of pedophilia was rarely discussed in English before the 1950s. It is cur-rently understood as a divergence of personality, caused by psychological damagein early childhood.

Sexual relations between adults and children have been condemned since antiqu-ity for different reasons including religious, judicial, and psychological. Most pe-dophiles are men who seek contact with children, mainly boys in early puberty.Some wish to stimulate the child, some seek mutual stimulation, and others wantto have intercourse with the child. Although they receive most of the press coverage,only a minority is fascinated by sadistic elements in their relation to children. Dur-ing the last two decades, a growing awareness of the phenomenon has made it moredifficult for pedophiles to realize their sexual urges. That is why easy access to childpornography and chat rooms on the Internet plays such a prominent role in stim-ulating the fantasies of pedophiles.

Despite the lack of reliable statistics, it is known that sexual relations betweenadults and children have always taken place. The first British and U.S. surveys ofsexual child abuse date from the 1920s, but the Kinsey reports of the 1950s werethe first to study the subject in a detailed and scientific manner. A comparativestudy of Anglo-American surveys covering the years 1940 to 1990 showed that therelative number of cases did not change during this time, despite variations in surveydesign. Between 10 and 12 percent of young women reported having been sexually

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abused as girls younger than 14. There were no comparable figures for boys. Incontrast, the surveys of the 1990s have produced highly contradictory data, de-pending on basic differences in study populations and designs. In these surveys, thenumber of college students who claim to have been sexually abused as childrenvaries from 15 to 30 percent; however, intercourse is only mentioned by 5 or 6percent of the young informants in New Zealand, the United States, and England.The Scandinavian surveys show a similar picture. Official crime statistics, however,indicate a much lower incidence of sexual child abuse than that produced by thesesurveys. This suggests a large dark figure, especially for severe crimes in familysettings. In addition, research is being done to determine what and how muchindividuals can actually recall from early childhood. To what degree the sexualabuse is caused by pedophiles and not by other kinds of sexual criminals is impos-sible to discern from the existing statistical sources. See also: Child Rape; Com-puters and the Internet; Incest.

Suggested Readings: V.L. Bullough, “History in Adult Human Sexual Behavior with Chil-dren and Adolescence in Western societies,” in Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions, ed. J.R.Feirman (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1990), 69–90; David Finkelhor and Jennifer Dziuba-Leatherman, “Children as Victims of Violence: A National Survey,” Pediatrics 94.4 (1994):413–420; Philip Jenkins, Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in ModernAmerica (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).

NING DE CONINCK-SMITH

PHYSICIANS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS. A vast array of medical profession-als (nurses, physicians, psychiatrists, counselors, and so on) provide important serv-ices to help rape victims deal with the medical and psychological repercussions ofrape, both immediately after the crime and as latent problems manifest over time.While the medical profession is generally applauded for providing these vital serv-ices, it is also criticized for its part in not recognizing the signs of unreported rapesand, in some instances, for being the perpetrator of the crime.

Medical professionals play a key role in assisting the survivors of rape to dealwith the short- and long-term physical, sexual, and emotional repercussions. Boththe American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of FamilyPhysicians suggest that, immediately following the assault, victims should first en-sure that they are in a safe place, then immediately seek professional medical at-tention. Due to the specialized nature of the needed medical procedures, most rapecrises support agencies and the AMA suggest that the survivors should seek thisassistance at a hospital emergency room or a purpose-designed clinic. As the firstpoint of contact, the medical profession plays two vital roles: first, in treating anyinjuries (physical, internal, and shock), trauma, pregnancy, and infectious diseases(sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDs) contracted during the assault and,second, in collecting the evidence of the crime. Medical evidence should be extractedand preserved with a special-purpose rape kit, as this may be required in subsequentlegal proceedings. Both the forensic evidence and the expert testimony of the med-ical professionals can play a vital role in future criminal trials. In addition to pro-viding treatment for the physical injuries sustained during the rape, it is nowrecognized that early intervention and counseling can accelerate the emotional, men-tal, and psychological recovery of a survivor. There is a growing trend to combineemergency response teams of medical, counseling, and legal professionals to provide

148 PHYSICIANS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

a more comprehensive form of treatment at the time of the crime. Psychologicalintervention by psychiatrists and counselors can help the victims deal with the rapetrauma syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder.

While the immediate provision of multidisciplinary medical care signifies the startof the optimum treatment program for survivors, the AMA recognizes that the vastmajority of rape victims (as high as 83 percent) never seek medical care. While thereare many complex reasons for the silence of the victims, the profession is criticizedfor ignoring or missing the symptoms that a patient may have been victimized inthe recent or distant past. Female victims of intimate violence, including rape, fre-quently experience more gynecological, neurological, and stress-related medicalproblems over time. The profession comes under criticism for the absence of re-sources and time allocated to identifying and correlating that a wide array of re-peated medical complaints may in fact be symptomatic of a traumatic rape orrepeated intimate abuse.

The physician-patient relationship is predicated on objectivity, a bond of trust,and an uneven association of power, with the doctor being deemed as the morepowerful in the relationship. As early as the fourth century b.c.e., the Hippocraticoath expressed ethical opposition to any sexual encounters within the doctor-patient relationship. The current Code of Ethics of most professional medical as-sociations, including the AMA, American Psychiatric Association, and AmericanOsteopathic Association, explicitly states that sexual relationships are unethical be-tween doctors and their current or former patients. Doctors who have either con-sensual or nonconsensual sexual encounters with patients may be disciplined bytheir medical association or by the state licensing board. Deemed as sexual miscon-duct, these acts are believed to be exploitative and harmful to the patient, to pre-clude medical objectivity, and to compromise treatment. Despite these ethicalguidelines, studies show that an increasing number of physicians are charged withsex-related offenses with patients, including rape. State medical licensing boardsdiscipline these physicians by suspending or revoking their medical licenses, and theperpetrator can also face criminal prosecution. The medical profession itself rec-ognizes the ethical problem of sexual misconduct and rape by physicians and claimsa no-tolerance policy. However, most professional organizations respond that phy-sicians need more instruction on the appropriate boundaries in the doctor-patientrelationship, and they cite the fact that ethics are not a core component of thecurriculum at many medical schools. Despite this professional debate, in 1996,Idaho was the first state to introduce legislation that criminalizes all forms of sexualcontact between a patient and a health care provider. Another controversy withinthe medical profession emanates from the tradition of medical students performingnonconsensual pelvic examinations on anesthetized women who are undergoingsurgery for non-related medical procedures. While the frequency of this complainthas only recently received attention in the media, many female victims are nowclaiming that this invasive procedure constitutes rape while under general anesthe-sia.

While the conduct of a minority of the medical profession comes under ongoingcriticism, the services provided by the majority of the health care professionals arevitally important in helping victims survive and recover from a rape. Organizationssuch as the AMA have implemented specific policies to ensure that all medicalprofessionals, and especially those specializing in victim care, receive up-to-date

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information on the newest medical approaches to caring for the survivors of rape.See also: DNA Collection and Evidence; Morning-After Pill.

Suggested Reading: American Medical Association, Strategies for the Treatment and Pre-vention of Sexual Assault (Chicago: Author, 1995), http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/386/sexualassault.pdf; American Medical Association, Council on Ethical andJudicial Affairs, “Sexual Misconduct in the Practice of Medicine,” Journal of the AmericanMedical Association 266.19 (November 20, 1991): 2741–2745; A. Amey and D. Bishai,“Measuring the Quality of Medical Care for Women Who Experience Sexual Assault withData from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey,” Annals of EmergencyMedicine 39.6 (June 2002): 631–638; D. Davis, “Pelvic Exams Performed on AnesthetizedWomen,” Virtual Mentor (The Ethics Journal of the American Medical Association) 5.5(May 2003), http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/10220.html; C. Dehlendorf andS. Wolfe, “Physicians Disciplined for Sex-Related Offenses,” Journal of the American Med-ical Association 279.23 (June 17, 1998): 1883–1888; C. Winchell, “Curbside Consultation—The Seductive Patient,” American Academy of Family Physicians 62 (September 1, 2000):1196.

LAURIE JACKLIN

POGROM. From the Russian word pogromit, meaning “outrage” and “havoc,”the term pogrom describes an organized, often officially encouraged massacre orpersecution of a minority group. Pogroms initially referred to organized violenceagainst Russian Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “Orga-nized,” in this context, means the violent actions were either state sponsored orstate approved and usually ignored by the police or soldiers in the area. Typically,Jewish homes and businesses were looted, people were injured and sometimes mur-dered, and women were raped. Jewish families often hid their daughters in rolled-up mattresses or pickle barrels. Similarities to these Russian pogroms can be seenduring the Kristallnacht pogroms in Germany in November 1938. These riotsagainst the Jews were supposed to be the spontaneous actions of outraged Germans,following the assassination of a minor German official by a Jewish teenager whosefamily had been deported to a concentration camp in Poland. In reality, Nazi of-ficials orchestrated the mob violence, which resulted in a vast amount of damageto Jewish property, as well as in the injuries and deaths of many Jews. Over severaldays, Nazis and Nazi sympathizers destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and syna-gogues and raped, injured, murdered, and deported Jews throughout Germany.

Although it is still most commonly used in the sense of a riot directed againstJews, pogrom is now used sometimes to refer to the persecution and riots againstany group of people. Pogroms occur most often in areas where strong racial, reli-gious, or political differences are prominent among the population and there existsa minority scapegoat population. In the Gujarat area in India in 2002, for example,a pogrom was executed against Muslim people by Hindu extremists. Some researchpresents the pogrom in Gujarat as a violent riot, but one defining characteristic thatclearly indicated a pogrom was that door-to-door targeted and organized violencetook place. Hindu extremists moved from house to house, killing, raping, and loot-ing the houses of Muslims. Also, the level of violence was extreme. Young girlswere raped and then burned, and others were chopped to pieces with swords. Also,the police in the area did nothing to stop the mob of 1,000 murderers and rapists,but instead they patrolled areas outside of the incident, turning a blind eye to themassacre. See also: Bosnia-Herzegovina; Rape of Nanking.

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Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Miranda Kennedy, “Report from Gujarat,” The Nation,December 9, 2002, http://www.thenation.com/doc,mhtm1%03Fi�20021209&s�Kennedy20021121; “Kristallnacht: The November 1938 Pogroms,” United States Holocaust Me-morial Museum, http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/kristallnacht/frame.htm.

ARTHUR HOLST

POPULAR CULTURE. In contrast to high culture, popular culture is consideredto represent cultural practices generated by and for a general as opposed to an eliteor educated audience. Popular culture includes folk and native art, as well as themedia, music from pop to hip hop, visual representations such as film and adver-tisements, and certain literary genres such as pulp and detective fiction. Many cul-tures, though, have never made a clear-cut distinction between high and popularculture. Contemporary postmodern culture in particular tends to blur this binarism,generating a hybrid culture, which is distributed globally. Moreover, forms of pop-ular culture may evolve as avant-garde cultural practices (e.g., pop art, punk music,and cyber culture) before they become appropriated into and reproduced by massculture. Popular culture is thus a contested term that transports values, marks cul-tural territories, and like cultures themselves, is always in transition.

In contemporary popular culture, representations of rape and sexual violenceseem rampant, recurring in the rap lyrics, visual arts, and cinematic texts from SamPeckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) to Jonathan Kaplan’s The Accused (1988) andQuentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). Rape and incest are hinted at, even infashion photography. In line with traditional resentments against popular culture,which have partly been triggered by the dismissal of American mass culture by theFrankfurt School, this deployment of (sexual) violence in popular culture is fre-quently deemed to mirror social phenomena of violence. The exposure to movies,pornography, and pop songs with violent content is said to reproduce and thus toperpetuate real violence. Accordingly, mass products of popular culture such asfilms and CDs are rated and thus restricted to certain age groups.

In the United States the belief that representations of violence reproduce realviolence was reinforced in the 1980s and 1990s by an intensified debate of prom-inent cases of rape, date rape, and sexual harassment within the media. This prom-inence of rape and sexual violence in popular culture seemed to suggest thatAmerican culture is a “rape culture.” However, the term rape culture misleadinglyhints that rape occurs more frequently in a culture that talks about rape intensivelythan in cultures that deny its existence. Instead of documenting the state of realrape, though, the deployment of rape in American popular culture bespeaks thestatus of rape as a central trope within the American cultural imagination. Accord-ingly, films, videos, and pop music do not present us with cases of real rape butwith representations of rape that need to be interpreted with reference to the historyof their own particular aesthetics. Thus the cultural effect of gangsta rap, for in-stance, cannot be reduced to its violence-prone, misogynist lyrics. It also needs tobe interpreted as part of a tradition that thrives on ambivalence and parody. Seealso: Advertising; Literature, World and American.

Suggested Reading: Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne, eds., The Guide to United StatesPopular Culture (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2001);Marjorie Garber, Jann Matlock, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, eds., Media Spectacles (New

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York: Routledge, 1993); Adele M. Stan, Debating Sexual Correctness: Pornography, SexualHarassment, Date Rape, and the Politics of Sexual Equality (New York: Delta, 1995); JohnStorey, An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Athens: Universityof Georgia Press, 1993).

SABINE SIELKE

PORNOGRAPHY. How one defines pornography depends to a degree on how oneviews it. Literally, the word pornography means “the graphic depiction of whores,”though it is often translated as “writing about prostitutes.” A useful definition thatcaptures its historic function is offered by Gail Dines: “any product produced forthe primary purpose of facilitating male arousal and masturbation” (Morgan, 306).Religious conservatives define pornography as immoral; antipornography feministssee pornography as about justice, not morality. Recently, pro-pornography academ-ics have suggested that pornography is liberating, and so it is not about justice, ormorality, but sexual freedom. This definitional conflict is at the heart of the problemof pornography—is it protected speech or a violation of human equality rights?

The relationship between pornography and rape is a complex, unsettling, andunsettled one and is a central aspect of the debate about what pornography is andwhat it does. Feminist Robin Morgan proposed in 1974 that “pornography is thetheory, rape is the practice” (Lederer, 140). This argument holds that pornographyperpetuates rape myths and thus facilitates the acceptance of rape myths (i.e.,“women want it, their protests notwithstanding”), and consequently pornographyfosters violence against women. In pornography, according to one of the most fa-mous antipornography writers, Andrea Dworkin, “rape or battering cannot existas violation of female will because they are viewed as expressions of female will”(140). Or as feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon explains, “[P]ornographyconstructs what a woman is as what men want from sex” (Itzin, 461). These writersclaim that pornography makes the inequality that exists between men and womensexy, and in making inequality sexy, it promotes and authorizes rape, battery, sex-ual harassment, prostitution, and child sexual abuse.

The problem in understanding pornography in general, and pornography’s rela-tionship to rape in specific, is that pornography exists as an “idea” for some—anidea about speech, about creative expression—but is experienced as an industry byothers—from those who underwrite its production and profit from its consumptionto those who are used in it. As an industry, it exists to be sold, and it exists to bebought. Its making requires the acts that are reproduced for consumption in variousmedia—through the Internet, through videos, and through magazines. Thus, vio-lence against the people appearing in pornography is one aspect of the making ofpornography. Just as it becomes a model for recording sexual violence that somerapists, sex murderers, and soldiers in wars or genocides reiterate through filmingtheir own exploits, so pornography that expresses violence in its depiction requiredviolence in its production. Pornography can be seen as a record of harm in itsmaking, harm specifically to women, children, and nondominant males; pornog-raphy is not words but a record of acts, and these acts constitute harm. For instance,anal intercourse is usually depicted without any use of a lubricant.

Unlike any other medium, pornography is not a depiction of some thing but existsto establish a sexual relationship with the material itself, a relationship that cul-minates in ejaculation. Thus, antipornography activists argue that masturbating to

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pornography is not about sex but in itself constitutes sex, sex with an object, andfosters sex that uses others, predominantly women, children, and nondominant menas objects for sex. Pornography is therefore viewed as harm to women, children,and nondominant men both in its production and its consumption.

Antipornography writers point to many instances of “copy-cat” crimes, in whicha man copies pornography in his sexual assault of a woman: rapists who use por-nography as a blueprint for violation; husbands who force their wives to enactscenes from pornography, including using animals to penetrate their partners. Somestudies of the effect of pornography on male behavior have espied a causal linkbetween pornography and aggressive behavior, between viewing pornography andmen’s increased levels of violence against women.

While pornography’s clientele seems to have changed in the past 30 years, andpornography for female arousal has recently been produced, the basic model andpreponderant pornographic offerings cater to men. How heterosexual couples usepornography also is subject to debate. Some see pornography as providing a formof sexual education or as expanding sexual possibilities; others see the use of por-nography by heterosexual couples as something that the man requests, as a way oflowering his partner’s defenses so that the acts in pornography can be reproducedsexually. This is a form of “grooming” behavior, a term that describes how a childsexual abuser uses various techniques, including showing pornography, to manip-ulate a child into accepting the sexual acts that constitute the abuse.

On the other hand, civil libertarians argue that pornography is fantasy, often aform of artistic expression that leads merely to “one-handed reading” (i.e., mas-turbation), that it is therefore speech, that as speech it is protected by the FirstAmendment of the Constitution, and that to be against pornography is to be againstfree speech. Those who hold this position argue that it is a mistake to collapsesexuality within a feminist discussion of “gender,” that opposition to pornographylimits sexual liberty, and in doing so, it is sexual minorities, such as homosexuals,who will be the first to be persecuted. Finally, those who defend pornography arguethat those who work in pornography have consented, and so the making of por-nography is not a form of sexual discrimination.

Antipornography activists point out that not all speech is protected (like yelling“fire” in a crowded theater) and argue that pornography is not speech but acts.Further, they respond that the approach to viewing pornography as speech was inplace before pornography as we know it now existed—pornography that uses pho-tographs, cameras, and other technology that records acts, not “ideas.”

Can sexuality and sexual practices be separated from the construction of gender?Is sexuality an aspect of inequality? When an act is sexual, is it harder to see theharm that it represents? These are key aspects of the debate.

Suggested Reading: Carol J. Adams, The Pornography of Meat (New York: Continuum,2003); Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (New York: Perigree Books,1981); Catherine Itzin, Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties (New York: Ox-ford University Press, 1993); Laura Lederer, Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography(New York: William Morrow, 1980); Robin Morgan, Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women’sAnthology for a New Millenium (New York: Washington Square Press, 2003); Diane E.H.Russell, Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography (New York: Teachers Col-lege Press, 1993); Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh, Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Por-nography Debate (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993).

CAROL J. ADAMS

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) 153

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD). Posttraumatic stress disorderis a diagnosis used by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to refer to ananxiety disorder that follows exposure to a traumatic event. The event can be some-thing witnessed or experienced, but to meet criteria for PTSD, it must involve “ac-tual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity ofself or others” (APA, 467). The aftermath of the Vietnam War is credited as thebeginning of the modern conception of PTSD, although psychological impairmentafter war has long been noted. This period was also the one in which feministsbegan to document the effect of trauma, particularly early childhood sexual abuse,on women.

More than half the population reports at least one traumatic event in their life-time. However, only a small percentage of those experiencing trauma will developPTSD; the American Psychiatric Association estimates that about 8 percent of adultsin the United States will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Women areabout twice as likely to develop the disorder as men. Some traumatic experiencesare more likely to lead to PTSD, with studies finding over 30 percent of men withcombat exposure developing the disorder. For both men and women, rape is highlylikely to lead to PTSD, as are torture, internment as a political prisoner, and child-hood abuse.

PTSD usually appears within three months of the trauma but can appear later,even years after the event. In about half the cases, symptoms will disappear inanother three months, but for the remaining cases, symptoms can persist, sometimesfor years, often waxing and waning with other life stressors or reminders of theevent.

The symptoms of PTSD fall into three categories: intrusion, avoidance, and hy-perarousal. Intrusion can take the form of recurrent and intrusive memories, night-mares, or what are termed “flashbacks,” dissociative states lasting a few secondsto days in which the person reexperiences the event. Avoidance includes trying toavoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations that remind them of the trauma. Personswith PTSD may feel numb; have less interest in events around them; have less abilityto feel emotions, especially those related to intimate involvement with others, andmay end up detached from other people and with a sense that they have no future.Hyprearousal means persons with PTSD experience symptoms of anxiety or arousalthat were not present before the trauma. These can include difficulty sleeping, hy-pervigilance, exaggerated startle responses, outbursts of anger, or difficulty concen-trating.

Other psychological disorders often accompany PTSD. Depression is a commonconsequence of the losses experienced in the trauma and the individual’s inabilityto confront the painful feelings. Some individuals may also experience survivorguilt, because they survived the trauma, while others did not. Many people alsoattempt to blunt the symptoms of PTSD by abusing alcohol or other drugs.

Learning theory is usually used to explain the presence of the avoidance behaviorsand the hyperarousal in PTSD, but the intrusive symptoms are harder to explain.It has been theorized that cognitive processing involves a “completion tendency”that keeps trauma information in active memory. It has been shown that a shift inperceptions follows trauma, resulting in a loss of belief in the meaningfulness oflife and in one’s own invulnerability and worth. The task of recovering meaninginvolves reexamining and reinterpreting the event.

Attempts have been made to identify factors that increase the likelihood that

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trauma will result in PTSD. More extreme traumas, that is, those that have largerand more intense stressors over a longer period of time and those that are moreunpredictable and uncontrollable, are more likely to result in PTSD. There are someindications that neurohormonal changes observed following PTSD may have a ge-netic factor. Childhood abuse increases the likelihood of PTSD following trauma.Factors such as active coping styles, the use of humor and religion, and socialsupport can reduce the risk of PTSD. See also: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID);Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Suggested Reading: American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DM-IV-TR) (Washington, DC: Author,2000); Mardi J. Horowitz, Stress Response Syndromes, 2nd ed. (New York: Aronson, 1986);Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Shattered Assumptions: Toward a New Psychology of Trauma (NewYork: Free Press, 1992); F.H. Norris, “Epidemiology of Trauma: Frequency and Impact ofDifferent Potentially Traumatic Events on Different Demographic Groups,” Journal of Con-sulting and Clinical Psychology 60 (1992): 409–418; C.S. Widom, “Posttraumatic StressDisorder in Abused and Neglected Children Grown Up,” American Journal of Psychiatry156.8 (1999): 1223–1239; R. Yehuda, “Psychoneuroendocrinology of Post-traumatic StressDisorder,” Psychiatric Clinics of North America 21.2 (1998): 359–379.

MARGARET GIBBS

PREDATORS. See Sexual Predators.

PREGNANCY. The survivor of a rape who finds she is pregnant faces many dif-ficult choices, which in turn increase the psychological trauma of the rape. She mustchoose whether to terminate the pregnancy. If she opts for an abortion, the stressof this could compound the already complex effects of the assault itself. In someareas, where abortions are difficult to obtain, infanticide may result. If abortion isillegal, the medical and social risks involved increase. Following Germany’s defeatin World War II, the number of rapes committed by occupying soldiers, mainly ofthe Red Army, was so large that hospitals were authorized to provide abortions,though normally illegal.

If a raped woman opts to have the baby, she faces the decision of whether toraise the child. It may be problematic at times for the mother to disassociate thechild from the attacker, particularly if there is a physical resemblance. If the childis the result of incest, further complications arise. People may ostracize the child ofrape, especially if the assailant was a member of an enemy group. Some medievalEuropean penitentials taught that women should not be condemned if they left todie by exposure an infant conceived during a rape, but they did have to performpenance.

In some places, any sexual encounter by a woman outside of marriage is likelyto be the cause of her death in order to redeem her family’s honor. Therefore, arape resulting in pregnancy may prove to be a woman’s death sentence. Unwedmothers were frequently shunned in earlier eras and continue to be so in some areasof the world today. If the woman is already in a sexually active relationship, thepaternity of the child may be unclear unless a DNA test is done. Without confir-mation of paternity, her partner will often have difficulty accepting the child.

On the other hand, if the rapist becomes aware of the child’s existence, he mayassert his parental rights, including the right to consent (or not) to adoption. The

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mother is then faced with a lifelong relationship with her assailant and additionalworries for the child’s well-being. Many states have therefore established laws thatdeny parental rights to the father if the child was conceived as a result of rape.

Late medieval and early modern English law courts employed the Galenic modelof reproduction, which denied the possibility of pregnancy resulting from rape.Galen, an ancient Greek physician, believed that both men and women produced“seed.” A woman only released her “seed” upon orgasm, which in turn only hap-pened if the experience had been enjoyable and hence consensual. The belief thatwomen could not conceive if raped was carried to the British American colonies.

In the 1990s, a study found that women who are raped are more likely to becomepregnant than women who engage in consensual intercourse, thereby asserting thatthere may be a biological imperative for rape (Gottschall and Gottschall). Thisreport, based on insufficiently small sample groups (about 400 in each group), isdangerous, as some men may try to employ it to condone rape. Since few men rapefor reproductive reasons—rape is an issue of power, not sex—the results and pur-pose of the study are even more questionable.

One instance where pregnancy was a desired outcome of an assault is the sys-tematic rapes of women in the civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Here,women and girls were repeatedly raped, often with the aim of impregnating them.Both the rapes and the resultant pregnancies worked to tear families apart, to un-dermine a religion, to blur ethnic identities, as well as to humiliate and psycholog-ically (and not infrequently physically) destroy the opposition. See also:Morning-After Pill; Paternity Testing; Stigma.

Suggested Reading: John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Chil-dren in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Random House,1990); Jonathan A. Gottschall and Tiffany A. Gottschall, “Are Per-Incident Rape-PregnancyRates Higher Than Per-Incident Consensual Pregnancy Rates?” Human Nature: An Inter-disciplinary Biosocial Perspective 14.1 (2003): 1–20; Atina Grossmann, “A Question ofSilence: The Rape of German Women by Occupation Soldiers,” in West Germany underConstruction: Politics, Society, and Culture in the Adenauer Era, ed. Robert G. Moeller(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 33–52; Dorothy Q. Thomas and ReganE. Ralph, “Rape in War: The Case of Bosnia,” in Gender Politics in the Western Balkans:Women and Society in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Successor States, ed. Sabrina P. Rametand Branka Magas (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 203–218.

TONYA MARIE LAMBERT

PREVENTION. See Rape Prevention.

PRISON RAPE. While incarcerated in detention facilities, men, women, and youthscan be subjected to sexual harassment, sexual brutality, and rape. Rape within aprison setting can happen through multiple combinations of circumstances and per-petrators (individuals who carry out the rape of another). Prison rapes can be per-petrated as prisoner upon prisoner in which either a single individual or a gang ofindividuals is responsible for the rape of another inmate. In addition, prison staffmight rape their own prisoner(s).

Prisoner rape is denounced as a violation of human rights by the United Statesand by many in the international community. Several organizations, such as Am-nesty International, and a growing number of international governing bodies have

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even recognized sexual assault upon prisoners as a classification and method oftorture. In the United States, prison rape is recognized as a violation of the pris-oner’s Eighth Amendment U.S. constitutional rights, which expressly prohibit crueland unusual punishment.

Statistical studies of the U.S. prison population provide only an overview and aglimpse of the frequency and vulnerability of prisoners to being raped while in anAmerican prison. At present such sexual crimes occurring within prison facilitiesare not reflected in the U.S. Bureau of Justice’s annual crime statistics, which pro-vides reporting on sexual and other crimes. Information about the extent of prisonrape in the American prison system is therefore largely dependent, then, on otherstudies and sources of investigation. Typically, these existing and available studieshave limited information about the national occurrence and scope of prison rapein the United States—because generally information about prison sexual assaults isoften available from only a few prisons within select regions of the United States.

But from such studies as these, specifically one regarding male prison inmates,appears the ratio that 1 in 10 men report being anally raped while in prison. Ratesfor women being sexually assaulted in prison vary greatly and appear dependenton the facility in which they are incarcerated. Although women do experience forcedsexual assaults and sexual coercion in prison, according to a report in 1996 byCindy Struckman-Johnson, women prisoners are more likely to be sexually ha-rassed. Youths, of both genders, are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault whenplaced in detaining circumstances with an adult prison population. With the prob-lems of overcrowding and understaffing in the current prison system, perpetratorscan more easily exploit the vulnerabilities of both the prison system itself and ul-timately the vulnerabilities of their future victims.

Although anyone certainly can become a victim of sexual assault, prisoners withmental disabilities or of diminutive size or male prisoners with otherwise perceivedfeminine traits are significant targets for sexual violence in prison. Among male andfemale prisoners, often the newest inmates who may have yet to form the protectionof gangs, who are younger or who are lacking other resources for defense, becomethose prisoners facing the most potential risk for perpetual sexual victimization.

In prison environments, sexual assaults happen to both men and women, acrossall age groups and sexual orientations, with some similar yet distinct characteristicsand effects. The common misuse of the expression for prison sexual assault as being“homosexual rape” can lead both male and female victims to feel that their sense,definition, and experience of what is masculine or feminine, as well as what is meantby sexuality, is at risk. Gay and lesbian survivors of prison rape can equally blamethemselves for their sexual orientation for increasing their perceived vulnerabilityfor their sexual assault.

In addition to the direct injury of sexual violence to their bodies, men and womenwho are sexually assaulted during their prison incarceration also are subjected tothe very real dangers of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In prison settings STDprophylaxis (prevention) and treatment is not often, if at all, available. HIV trans-mission rates alone, according to one study, are 10 times higher in the prison pop-ulation as compared with a general population of nonprisoners. For womenprisoners, pregnancy intervention methods are also too frequently nonexistent. Pris-oners can be reluctant to report their sexual assault to the prison authorities forfear of retaliation, stigmatization, or additional violence threatened by their per-petrators. For these assaulted prisoners, their victimization then extends further by

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reducing their opportunities to receive prompt medical intervention. Immediate andearly medical care can have clear and powerful effects on the disease outcomes ofSTDs and HIV, as well as pregnancy.

Because of the very nature of their confinement and restricted freedoms, it isimportant to consider that for many prisoners experiencing sexual violence inprison, they can continue to be sexually victimized throughout the duration of theirincarceration sentence—which could be years or a lifetime. As a potential survivalstrategy, then, prisoners may make multiple concessions, including sexual victimi-zation itself, in order to avoid or assert some control over the outcome of furtheracts of violence.

More nationwide and thorough studies are needed to better assess the extent andconsequences of prison rape. Such studies would, in addition to raising awarenessof prison rape, provide information about preventing those circumstances uniqueto sexual assault in prison environments and identify the specific needs for treatingthese rape victims as well as their perpetrators. See also: HIV/AIDS.

Suggested Reading: Amnesty International, http://www.amnestyusa.org/; Human RightsWatch, htp://www.hrw.org/; Daniel Lockwood, Prison Sexual Violence (New York: ElsevierScience, 1980); Stop Prisoner Rape, http://www.spr.org/; Wayne Wooden and Jay Parker,Men behind Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison (New York: Plenum, 1982).

JENNIFER H. PROFITT

PROFILING. Profiling is the analysis of an unsolved violent crime to determineidentifiable characteristics of the unknown offender. The profile consists of subjec-tive opinions created by forensic behavioral specialists and is intended for use bycriminal investigators and others in the criminal justice system. Clinical psycholo-gists or psychiatrists lacking experience in the investigation of violent crime createdmost profiles until the late twentieth century. Since then, the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation’s (FBI) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC),retired FBI agents, and selected law enforcement officers who have studied with theNCAVC prepare criminal profiles. Profiling forms one part of a criminal investi-gative analysis. Other services that can be included in an analysis are recommen-dations for investigative techniques, interrogation methods useful for particulartypes of suspects, and trial strategies, as well as opinions regarding manner of death.

In 1972, the FBI Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy informally initiatedlaw enforcement’s involvement in profiling. The FBI’s involvement in criminal pro-filing grew out of the realization that similar offenders committed similar crimesfor similar reasons because the underlying motivation is basically the same. TheFBI then formalized the program in 1978 after unanticipated demand and beganassigning cases to individual investigators. In 1984, the National Center for theAnalysis of Violent Crime supplanted the Behavior Science Unit. NCAVC coordi-nators in various geographic regions check submitted cases for the necessary ma-terials and for suitability to profiling.

The NCAVC prepares profiles for those cases that meet their requirements, keep-ing case materials for future reference. These materials, the details of each violentcrime and its distinguishing features, are stored in their computer database. Data-base searches allow the agency to determine whether particular crimes are possiblylinked to earlier crimes, meaning that there is likely a serial criminal involved. Ser-vices are provided free to legitimate governmental criminal justice agencies, while

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nongovernmental agencies pay a fee. The criminal profiler needs no particular ed-ucational degree or attributes, although a background in the behavioral sciences ishelpful. Characteristics of good profilers include investigative and research experi-ence, common sense, intuitiveness, the ability to isolate emotions, the ability toanalyze a situation and arrive at logical conclusions, and the ability to reconstructthe crime using the criminal’s reasoning process.

Profiling’s primary purpose is to save investigative hours by narrowing the focusof a criminal investigation. Profiling is an art rather than a science, and expertsadvise that it should never be the first or only investigative method that an inves-tigator utilizes. Investigators are advised to conduct all conventional methods firstand use profiling if the case remains unsolved, as profiling will rarely lead to thedirect solution of a case. Profiling will not identify a specific person as a suspect inthe crime. Instead, it will identify a personality type that investigators can use tohelp determine or eliminate potential suspects. To be eligible for profiling, a casemust involve a crime or series of crimes of violence or potential violence with anunknown offender, and all other major investigational leads must have been ex-hausted. Serial rapes are among those crimes that are particularly appropriate forprofiling. The investigating law enforcement agency must include a case materialsmap, a victim statement, and a victimology, or summary of known facts about thevictim. The interview of the rape victim and its documentation are the most im-portant factors in rape profiling. There should be no information that identifiesparticular suspects in order to avoid damaging the profiler’s objectivity. If there isnot sufficient behavior to analyze, the NCAVC will be unable to profile the case.

The profiling process in rape cases follows three basic steps: determining fromthe victim the rapist’s behavior, analyzing that behavior to determine the rapist’smotivation, and stating the characteristics and traits of the person who would com-mit rape in the manner indicated by his/her behavior. The forms of offender be-havior that profilers analyze include verbal statements, the type and sequence ofsexual acts, and the amount of physical force used by the offender. The motivationfor the crime is exhibited through the rapist’s behavior and can include hostility,anger, need for affection, concern, degradation, and punishment. A profile’s formatmay vary from preparer to preparer, but the information remains essentially thesame. The most common formats are outlining, which allows quick identificationof specific characteristics, and narrative style, which provides more detail.

Profiles can include both the general characteristics of the stranger rapist and thespecific characteristics of different categories of rapists. Power reassurance (com-pensatory) rapists are the least violent and aggressive, using only enough force tocontrol their victims and often expressing concern for the victim’s welfare. Theysuffer from low self-image, and their basic purpose is to elevate their self-status.Anger retaliation rapists see themselves as masculine and socially competent butharbor deep hatred for women. Their basic purpose is to get even with all womenthrough hurting a specific victim. Power assertive rapists exhibit selfish behaviorwith no regard for the victim’s welfare, attempting to express their virility anddominance through rape. Sadistic rapists are the most dangerous because they ex-hibit compulsive personalities and rape with the clear intent to harm the victim.Many sadistic rapists often escalate to murder, although the act of killing is sec-ondary to the act of rape. They express no remorse for their actions. Most profilesinclude the rapist’s approximate age, sex, race, marital status, occupation type,hobbies, approximate year and style of vehicle, arrest history, appearance and

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grooming habits, residential information, and victim-offender relationship. Profilesalso include an offender’s personality characteristics, such as temperament, intelli-gence, emotional adjustment, pathological behavioral characteristics, and ability tointeract socially and sexually. See also: Prosecution; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists;Sex Offenders.

Suggested Reading: A.N. Groth, Men Who Rape (New York: Plenum Press, 1988); RobertR. Hazelwood and Ann Wolbert Burgess, Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: A Mul-tidisciplinary Approach (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1995); Ronald M. Holmes and StephenT. Holmes, Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,2002); Brent Turvey, Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis(San Diego: Academic Press, 2002).

MARCELLA TREVINO

PROSECUTION. Statistics show that 9 out of every 10 women who are rapedwill choose not to report the rape to authorities. Rape victims often feel guilty andembarrassed after a rape, and insensitive police officers and/or hospital personnelcan accentuate these feelings of responsibility for being the victim of a sexual crime.Many rape victims choose silence over prosecution because they know that a trialwould force them to face the rapist and relive the horrors of the rape in front of acrowded courtroom, where they might not be believed and might be accused oflying or even encouraging or consenting to the rape. High-profile rape cases likethe 1991 cases of William Kennedy Smith in Florida and Mike Tyson in Indianahave given rape victims an illuminating view of how victims may be treated duringrape trials. Even if a rape victim is willing to report the crime, she/he knows thatthe rapist is unlikely to be arrested and even less likely to be prosecuted and im-prisoned for the crime. If the rapist is imprisoned, he is likely to serve only a fewyears, and the rape victim may have been threatened with revenge.

Before the women’s movement of the 1970s, rape victims were often interviewedby insensitive police officers who questioned a woman about what she did to pro-voke the rape. In response to the feminist call-to-arms on the subject of rape andthe creation of rape crisis centers, the attitude of police officers has changed for themost part. Rape crisis advocates who support rape victims throughout the processof dealing with the aftermath of rape have called attention to improper actions indealing with rape victims, and it has become standard practice to develop trainingfor all those who regularly come into contact with rape victims.

Successful prosecution of a rape case depends to a significant degree on the qual-ity of evidence accumulated by those who gather physical evidence from the victimand the crime scene. Technical experts can often analyze evidence to form a com-plete picture of the rapist and of his habits. Criminologists have identified fourmajor categories of evidence that help prosecutors build a case against a rapist:forensic, circumstantial, eyewitness, and direct evidence. Forensic evidence, such asfingerprints, footprints, body fluids, hairs, and fiber, can scientifically connect arapist to a crime scene. Circumstantial evidence may point to a particular individualas a rapist. Eyewitnesses can place an individual or a vehicle at the scene of thecrime. Direct evidence like drivers’ licenses and photographs of the victim mayhighlight a direct link between the rapist and the victim. Collateral evidence, suchas reading, viewing, and collecting habits, that may seem minor on the surface mayindicate a particular interest, pattern, or behavior that leads to the arrest and con-viction of a rapist.

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One reason that it has become easier for prosecutors to convict accused rapistsis that both federal and state laws have become more responsive to the realities oflaw. For example, in 1975, the Michigan legislature passed rape reforms that be-came the model for other states. The Michigan law set up four categories of sexualassault based on the seriousness of the crime in gender-neutral language that in-cluded offenses against males, as well as against females. The categories were basedon the seriousness of the offense, the amount of force or coercion used, the degreeof injuries inflicted, and the age and incapacitation of the victim. This new definitionof rape also expanded the traditional definition to include penetration by an objectand placed the burden of proof on the defendant. States also passed rape shieldlaws so that a victim is not put on trial for her/his sexual history and repealed lawsthat required prompt reporting and proof of resistance. Prosecutors at both thestate and federal level have been assisted by improved technology, which may pro-vide solid evidence that the accused rapist committed the crime in question. It mayalso clear the accused rapist of the crime. DNA evidence has been particularly usefulin solving rape crimes, and its use has become more widespread. For example, inAugust 2003, the New York Police Department announced that it would reviewsexual crimes of the past 10 years using DNA profiles. In light of new technology,Nevada has no statute of limitations on rape cases, and other states are extendingthe statute of limitations.

The behavior of the investigating officer who may be the first person to interviewa rape victim is extremely important to the emotional well-being of the victim andto the prosecutor who depends on investigating officers to conduct initial interviewsand to gather evidence at the crime scene. Before specific rape training was insti-tuted, officers might refuse to believe a woman was raped if she had not activelyresisted, if the rape had not been witnessed, or if the victim was not physicallyinjured or noticeably traumatized. Most police officers are now trained to under-stand that initial reactions of rape victims vary greatly. While one victim may bein shock, another may try to pretend the crime never happened. Another victimmay have hysterics, and still another may appear calm and in control on the surface.Experts have suggested a number of things the police can do to help rape victims.The police should make rape cases a high priority because rape is a crime withgrave consequences. Officers should ensure the safety of the victim and get imme-diate medical attention when it is needed. The initial interview should be as painlessas possible in comfortable and nonthreatening surroundings. No more than twopolice officers should be present at the interview. When questioning the victim,police officers should ask open-ended questions as well as those that require specificanswers. Specific information might include whether or not the victim knew herattacker, what kinds of smells or sounds were evident, what the weather was like,whether the victim had noticed a stranger hanging around or had received obscenephone calls, and whether the victim observed particular physical attributes of theattacker. The officer should also discuss legal procedures with the victim so thatshe/he will know what to expect. It is important that investigating officers be sup-portive, patient, and gentle with the victim and tactful with the victim’s family.

Before the prevalence of rape education and training, many rapes were neverprosecuted because prosecutors did not believe victims were raped. Estimates offalse rape charges vary from as low as the 2 percent suggested by rape crisis coun-selors to the 25 percent claimed by antifeminists. Prosecutors do have clues thatpoint to a false rape claim. If a victim recants her testimony after giving inconsistent

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testimony or if a victim’s testimony is not borne out by the evidence, the prosecutormay ask for a lie detector test. If the victim fails, the prosecutor may drop the case.A number of false rape claims picked up by the media have led some members ofthe public to think the incidence of false allegations of rape is higher than theevidence shows.

A charge of rape does not have to be false for the prosecutor to refuse to pros-ecute or to agree to a lesser charge (plea bargain). A prosecutor looks at how strongthe case is, whether the victim is a child or is mentally incapacitated, whether theattacker was a current or previous sexual partner, and whether alcohol or drugswere present. Other factors in the decision may include the background of thedefendant, the victim’s attitude and ability to withstand the trial, and the perceivedlevel of threat to society from the accused. In some cases, state and federal prose-cutors are never involved in rape cases. For example, when rapes occur on collegecampuses involving the alleged rape of one student by another, the school mayengage in damage control by responding to the rape through campus policies. Thehighly publicized sex scandals within the Catholic Church have generally been dealtwith (or ignored) by Church officials. When rape occurs in the military, militaryprocedures take precedence over civil remedies.

All professionals who work with rape victims are responsible for keeping thevictim informed of legalities at all levels. It may be up to the prosecutor to explainthe legal process to the victim, and this process may vary from state to state. Thefirst step in a rape charge is usually to file a complaint against the attacker, whowill then be arraigned in court, generally within a day or two. After the arraign-ment, a probable cause or preliminary hearing takes place at which all principalsare required to be present. The prosecutor attempts to connect the accused withthe crime, while the defense lawyer tries to prove there is no connection. If theaccused does not make an appearance in court, the police will make an effort tolocate him. If the preliminary hearing reveals sufficient evidence to bind the accusedover for trial, a trial date is set. The trial is usually held in front of a jury that willdetermine guilt or innocence. If the accused is found guilty, a sentence will behanded down, and the accused will be imprisoned.

For a trial, the prosecutor’s case files will include the following if well prepared:transcripts of the original call to the police; the first interview conducted at thecrime scene; interviews with the nurse and doctors who examined the patient at thehospital; a list of physical evidence linking the suspect to the crime scene; a follow-up interview with the investigating officer(s); personal notes taken during the pre-liminary hearing; statements of eyewitnesses; and statements given to a privateinvestigator if one was used.

The rape victim’s testimony may be the most important variable in determiningthe guilt of the accused, and the prosecutor needs to carefully question and preparethe victim for the trial. Interviews with all witnesses should be conducted personallyso that no surprises emerge in the course of the trial. Ideally, the prosecutor’s notesfor the actual trial should be so detailed that they include 90 percent of the closingstatement. Successful prosecutions are the most important factor in a rape victim’srecovery. See also: Campus Rape; Clergy, Sexual Abuse by; Law Enforcement; RapeKit; Secondary Rape.

Suggested Reading: Joy Satterwhite Eyman, How to Convict a Rapist (New York: Steinand Day, 1980); Rob Hall, Rape in America: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara, CA:

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ABC-CLIO, 1995); Susan Halpern, Rape: Helping the Victim (Oradell, NJ: Medical Eco-nomics Company, 1978); Robert R. Hazelwood and Kenneth V. Lanning, “Collected Ma-terials in Sexual Crimes,” in Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation, ed. Robert R.Hazelwood and Ann Wolbert Burgess (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001), 221–232; WilliamHeiman, rev. and updated by Ann Ponterio and Gail Fairman, “Prosecuting Rape Cases:Trial Tactic Issues,” in Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation, ed. Robert R. Hazelwoodand Ann Wolbert Burgess (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001), 347–364; Judith May-Parkerand Lucia Kiwala, Guidelines for Police Training on Violence against Women and ChildAbuse (London: Commonwealth Secretariat Team, 2000); Barbara J. Rodabaugh and Me-lanie Austin, Sexual Assault: A Guide for Community Action (New York: Garland STPMPress, 1981); Cassia Spohn and Julie Horney, Rape Law Reform: A Grassroots Revolutionand Its Impact (New York: Plenum Press, 1992).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

PROSTITUTION. Within the last century, views on the relationship between pros-titution and rape have remained divided. Some have seen prostitution, or the com-mercial sale of sex, as an intrinsic if unfortunate aspect of human civilization.Others perceive prostitution as rape, while still others regard the cultural stigma-tization and criminalization of prostitution as the crucial problems and advocatedecriminalization and redefining prostitutes as “sex workers.” Providing them withthe same legal protections afforded other citizens would reduce their vulnerabilityto coercion, violence, and in particular, rape. To date, however, positions on thiscontroversial topic have been limited by scarce research on pimps, victimizers, andclients and inadequate attention to male prostitutes.

Historically, human cultures have regarded prostitutes as deviant and outcastwomen, but early in the twentieth century, suffragists redefined them as “whiteslaves” compelled into commercial sex by “third parties,” or by organized cartelsthat ran an “international traffic in women.” For these antiprostitution activists,no woman could give genuine consent to prostitution but rather was coerced intoan inherently degrading form of sexual slavery. Commercial sex denied women therights of ownership over their bodies and moral characters, and it occurred becausemen demanded sexual access to women and denied them equal economic, familial,social, educational, and legal rights and opportunities.

None of the parties to the current debate deny that all classes of prostitutes,including streetwalkers, independent call girls, and brothel workers, are victimizedat alarming rates by assailants confident that the women will not report rape be-cause they live outside the law. Moreover, legal scholars wonder whether or notprostitutes can claim rape or only the theft of their services, even in contexts inwhich they are not engaged in commercial sexual activities. For instance, a manwho knows a woman (or man) is a prostitute could rape her or him, then claim hehad had a monetary dispute with the sex worker. Statistics attest to the difficultiesprostitutes face when they do report rape. Under most circumstances, they are de-nied protection of law. In the United States, police often call such reports “un-founded,” meaning that no crime ever occurred, and in many other countriesprostitutes never file reports.

Legal scholars concur that current laws against prostitution are hard to enforce,create an underworld culture that jeopardizes prostitutes, confuse victims with vic-timizers, and foster conditions in which “bosses” force prostitutes to service clientsor perform particular sex acts against their will. For these reasons, some feminists

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see rape as inherent in prostitution and thus want to see sex work eliminated bygiving prostitutes other economic choices. They also battle against pornography,which they perceive as perpetuating a culture of rape and sexual commodificationof women. These thinkers stress the high correlation between childhood sexualabuse and later involvement in prostitution and therefore view commercial sex asa lifelong continuum of sexual exploitation and violence countenanced by male-dominated cultures. However, incidents of sexual abuse of male children remainunderreported, and almost half of American women experience some form of sexualassault, sexual abuse, or sexual harassment during their lives but still do not becomeprostitutes. Hence, statistics should not be dismissed but regarded with some cau-tion.

Others draw different conclusions from the high vulnerability of prostitutes torape and exploitation. For them, prostitutes should not be characterized as socialor psychological “types” but rather as sex workers whose chief problems emanatefrom exploitative labor relations, social stigmatization, and lack of legal protections.According to this view, prostitution does not mean rape, but it often entails rapebecause current social policies reflect fear and hatred of prostitutes and perpetuatethe crimes committed against them. Dominant cultural attitudes condemn ascribingmonetary value to sexual activities and treat sexual pleasure as something inherentlydifferent from other pleasures, such as food and drink, which do have monetaryvalue. According to such thinkers, the issue of degradation is irrelevant because itinvolves beliefs about the place that sex “should” have in human relations. In ad-dition, they distinguish between consensual commercial sex acts between adult pros-titutes and clients and the crime of rape. Calls for more discipline and legalpunishment of prostitutes, and more recently, their abusive employers, have neverworked. Insisting on dealing with the “here and now,” such thinkers believe thatproviding sex workers with legal and labor protections makes distinct the nowblurred boundaries between prostitution and rape. Writings by women and, to alesser extent, men in the sex industry on the whole confirm the above view, whileattesting to the impossibility about drawing single theoretical conclusions aboutthis complex issue.

Some see prostitution as rape, a violation of human rights, and a means of main-taining male dominance over women. Others contend that treating sex work as alegitimate form of decriminalized labor would considerably lessen the rape andexploitation of such workers. However, in order to gain fuller understanding ofprostitution and rape, far more research into the pimps, victimizers, and above all,clients who create the demand for commercial sex is required, for as long as menremain excluded, changes in attitudes toward sex and power cannot occur. See also:Trafficking in Women and Children.

Suggested Reading: Melissa Farley, ed., Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress(Binghamton, NY: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, 2004); Kelly D. Weisberg, ed.,Applications of Feminist Legal Theory to Women’s Lives: Sex, Violence, Work, and Repro-duction (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).

CORINNE E. BLACKMER

R

RACE AND RACISM. Based on scientific notions of heredity, race is a modernconcept that has been employed by human and natural sciences to describe anddistinguish groups of living beings, both animal and human. As a cultural category,race is interwoven with concepts of nationality, the understanding of a people asnation, and notions of citizenship. In the United States the dual legacy of slaveryand immigration has had a particular impact on how citizenry relates to race, de-spite the fact that citizenship in the United States is based on ius soli, or place ofbirth, as opposed to ius sanguinis (law of blood). As a biological category, racedifferentiates organisms within a certain species. In more general use, the term racehas been applied to discriminate between persons of different phenotype, that is,skin color and texture of hair, ethnic descent, and cultural tradition. For culturalstudies, race has become the ultimate trope of difference.

The highly loaded but vague term racism refers to all forms of political, economic,and social discrimination based on supposedly hereditary racial and ethnic differ-ences. Racist ideologies are considered to have had a long history that can be tracedback to ancient history and myths as well as to the Bible. They found their scientificgrounding during the Enlightenment and the Victorian age, especially with theemergence of theories of evolution, such as Charles Darwin’s monumental workOn the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), and with apractice of ethnography that tended to biologize so-called primitive people. Duringthe rise of nation–states in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, colonialism andimperialism were legitimized in part by Eurocentric notions of cultural and racialsuperiority. Discriminating human races on genetically based phenotypes, scientifictheories of race also held that differences in phenotype correspond to certain char-acter traits. Nineteenth-century criminology defined social deviancy as a hereditarytrait. The most significant and lasting effect of these notions of race is that racialand ethnic differences were increasingly perceived as “natural.”

Resisting scientific racism and discrimination on the basis of race, class, andgender, cultural criticism has argued for decades that race cannot be reduced to

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biological essences but instead needs to be seen as a cultural construct that separatessocial groups and represents relations of power. Findings of molecular biology andmost recently the Human Genome Project have reinforced the notion that raceappeals to nothing that science can register as “real.” Instead, novel insights ofgenetic research have affirmed claims of critical anthropology that there is moregenetic variation within one race than there is between one race and another.

In the United States race emerged as a representation of the relation betweenNative Americans and European colonizers, yet even more prominently of the mas-ter/slave relation, and therefore as superimposed upon class and economic relations.In the nineteenth-century United States, culture race theories managed to retain thehierarchical difference between white Americans and African Americans even afterthe Civil War (1861–1865) and the period of Reconstruction (1865–1877), whileat the same time transforming that difference from an economic into a biologicaldivide. Laws that discriminated persons on the basis of their race—the so-calledJim Crow legislation in the United States—served to perpetuate social and culturalsegregation and were oftentimes violently enforced, especially in cases of so-calledmiscegenation. During the 1920s, fears that “darker” races could outnumber thewhite “Nordic” races dominated a growing interest in “ ‘other’ cultures,” includingAfrican American cultural expression. In the United States such xenophobic senti-ments led to adjustments of immigration laws in 1921 and 1924.

Racist ideologies and the science of race took devastating turns with the eugenicsmovement of the early twentieth century. Preoccupied with hereditary hygiene andthe health of the “national body,” eugenics was appropriated by fascism and itsappeal to a superior “Aryan” race and paved the way to the near extinction ofEuropean Jews during the reign of German national socialism. At the same timeEuropean eugenics had a strong impact on medical sciences in the United States,which engaged in experiments involving African Americans as well as mentally andphysically challenged persons.

The construction of race has involved high degrees of systemic and systematicviolence. Throughout the twentieth century, wars have involved crimes against hu-manity such as racial genocide and so-called ethnic cleansing. Moreover, the con-struction of race has been closely conjoined with constructions of class, gender, andsexuality. More specifically, theories of race and racist ideologies have informednotions of racialized sexualities, which project the sexual preferences and practicesof racial or ethnic “others” as deviant and prone to violence. Nineteenth-centuryU.S. culture thus brought forth a hierarchy of ethnicities with African Americanspositioned at the bottom, below the Irish. Capitalizing on constructions of racializedfemininity, antebellum American culture projected the image of a black female nym-phomaniac, which was used to legitimate the institutionalized rape of African Amer-ican women during slavery. Resting on the theory of racial retrogression, whichassumed blacks to relapse further into primitivism after the controlling force ofslavery was abolished, Southern postbellum culture tended to scapegoat AfricanAmericans for all political and economic tensions of the time. Racist fictions, suchas the novels of Thomas Dixon, not only projected African Americans as corruptand uncivilized; the criminal nature of the black male supposedly culminated in anirrepressible lust for white women. Like Irish men and males of the lower classes,African Americans were projected to be prone to sexual violence. Such claims inturn legitimized the use of violence against all blacks as a disciplinary practice forracial control.

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The so-called myth of the black rapist—the image of the oversexed and bestialAfrican American man—is by no means a postbellum phenomenon, however. Inthe 1840s, proponents of slavery insisted, for instance, that the descendants of Hamhad overdeveloped sexual organs and were the original Sodomites of the Old Tes-tament, thereby also acknowledging the homophobic and homorerotic dynamic thatinform projections of racialized sexuality. However, the image of the black rapistrose to nationwide prominence only after emancipation. It marked a significantchange in the American rhetoric on body and sexuality and a moment in Americancultural history that generated notions of difference still current today. While the—mostly merely alleged—rape of white women by black men was read as the rapeof the South after Reconstruction, as an attack on white civilization and moralpurity, the sexual violation of black women has rarely registered in American cul-ture. Black womanhood epitomized European perceptions of Africans as primitive,animallike, savage, and seemingly immune to such violation. As black women’sinjuries appeared negligible, their rape remained without retribution. Black female-ness has therefore been engendered as a condition of unredressed injury.

The discourse on rape, whether employed in the media, in historiography, or infiction, has been overdetermined by distinct and nationally specific histories of racialand ethnic conflict, by a discourse on race and ethnicity that itself has tended tooverdetermine issues of class. This underlines that representations of race, class,gender, sexuality, and sexual violence constitute dense transfer points for relationsof power. Narratives of sexual violence therefore do not ponder an alien and un-controllable part of human nature but the power dynamics of a particular culture.

While race has for a long time been employed primarily as a concept that sepa-rates the “other” from the norm or self and thus politically and socially marginalizesethnic groups, in the final decades of the twentieth century, race has been reclaimedby these groups as a parameter of an appreciated difference and employed for adistinct identity practice and politics. In the United States such race pride had al-ready gained visibility during the Harlem Renaissance, the rise of African Americancultural expression during the late nineteenth century up to the 1930s, and wasexpressed both more emphatically and more aggressively by the Black Aesthetic andBlack Power Movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Since African American culturehas historically associated matters of race, ethnicity, and nation, the link betweenrace, racialism, and nationalism becomes particularly evident in this context. Blacknationalism and other expressions of racial solidarity need to be understood as areaction and counterforce to systematic racial discrimination, which involved legalsegregation as well as extreme forms of physical violence such as lynch justice andcontinued racial discrimination. To this day racist ideologies and politics remain ameans to establish and perpetuate power relations. See also: Interracial Rape; Nazis;Rape-Lynch Scenario.

Suggested Reading: Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House,1983); Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Raceand Sex in America (New York: Morrow, 1984); Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race,” in Revising the Word and theWorld, ed. VeVe A. Clark, Ruth-Ellen B. Joeres, and Madelon Sprengnether (Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1993), 91–114; Walter Benn Michaels, “Race into Culture: A Crit-ical Genealogy of Cultural Identity,” Critical Inquiry 18.4 (June 1992): 655–685; Robyn

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Wiegman, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender (Durham, NC: Duke Univer-sity Press, 1995).

SABINE SIELKE

RAPE, CAUSES OF. Because rape has many meanings and social contexts, itsprecipitating factors depend on the social and cultural context in which it occurs,and any theory advanced to explain rape may explain only particular forms of it.Also, many theories explain acts of violence more generally, with rape being onlyone of many ways in which men (usually) attack other men, women, and children.Further, which types of rape get theorized depends upon which forms of it areunderstood to exist and be social problems. Rape in marriage, for instance, waslegal for many decades in the United States, as sex was considered a husband’sentitlement and a wife’s duty. Similarly, the rape of black women by white male“owners” was institutionalized under slavery. In such cases, rape is best explainedas enabled and motivated by a legalized sexual entitlement to specific women byspecific men. In other cases, after slavery, for example, white men used rape asmuch to signal their resistance to the freedom sought by black men as for sexualexploitation.

Rape takes place most often when there is social hierarchy—among men inprison, by men in marriage, by soldiers at war, by those who have enslaved anothergroup, by adults who control children, and by those preying upon people withphysical or mental disabilities. Rape is often an expression of possession, sexualentitlement, dominance, and intimidation. Hence some causal accounts suggest thatit is the desire for this dominance that precipitates rape. However, this cannotexplain rape committed by someone who does not necessarily think of the actionas intimidation, dominance, or rape.

It is the victims who describe rape as not sexual and as rendering them powerlessor subordinate to the perpetrator. Conflating the perspective of perpetrator andvictim has led some to assert that rape is caused by a desire to find unwilling peopleto force into sex. This view presumes that rapists realize they are raping, whichthey often do not. It also presumes that the goal is not sexual, though others haveemphasized the cultural conflation of sexual arousal and aggression.

The conflation of sexual pleasure and women’s subordination to men is perpet-uated in much mainstream pornography, leading some feminists to suggest thatimages celebrating and sexualizing violence against women cause rape by encour-aging a dangerous misunderstanding of real women’s desires. This causal accountis captured in Robin Morgan’s second-wave political slogan, “Pornography is thetheory for which rape is the practice” (Lederer, 140). This view cannot explain rapecommitted before pornography was prevalent, neither does it explain male-on-malerape. That rape occurs from male to male and not necessarily by gay-identifiedperpetrators confirms, for some, that rape is about violating another rather thangaining sexual pleasure and, for others, suggests that the cause of rape is the so-cialization to a masculinity that stresses aggression and goal-oriented sexuality overintimacy. Such socialization leads men to interpret the behaviors of others to suittheir own desires and may cause rape by blinding them to someone’s disinterest orunwillingness to have sex. Some scholars suggest that some men are frustrated bytheir lack of access to women, with whom they feel entitled to have sexual access.

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In this sense the cause of rape has to do with men’s anxieties around women’sshifting position in society, in which women’s complicity is no longer institutionallyenforced. As such, rape is caused by frustrated entitlement or by anger at a woman’sunavailability or unwillingness to accept men sexually.

Some suggest rape signals a failure of communication, while others have shownhow rape is a means of communication. Some, particularly in college rape preven-tion programs, suggest that miscommunication is a cause of rape and that women,in particular, must communicate more carefully, lest men take a “maybe” or silencefor a “yes” to have sex. This view presumes that men are in fact trying to getconsent and would not rape if women only communicated more clearly. However,it has been argued that men are communicating with women, but with a dispro-portionate authority to define situations and an arrogant sense of confidence aboutwomen’s desires, which they carry out with intimidation and force. When rapeoccurs by a gang of men on a woman, it has been suggested that the cause is men’sdesire to bond socially and sexually with one another but at the expense of anunwilling woman, who serves as a heterosexual alibi for homophobic men. Frater-nity gang rape, then, may communicate men’s erotic attraction to one another. Inorganized conflict, the rape of women might signal from one male group to another,“We have won this war.” Given that men are primarily those sacrificed in war,some have theorized that men rape because they have learned that their own bodiesare expendable and constantly under threat of violence by other men. Men thus donot have the respect for the sovereignty of women’s (or other men’s) bodies becausethey do not have body sovereignty themselves.

Evolutionary psychologists, noting that the majority of rapes are committed bymen whose victims are young women of reproductive age, suggest that rape iscaused by an evolved sexual psychology adapted for an earlier human environmentin which the men who sought sexual encounters with many fertile women wouldhave had greater reproductive success, thus establishing sexually aggressive behavioras human male nature. Men who were cooperative with and respectful of womenwould not have been such successful breeders and therefore would not have sur-vived to reproduce men like themselves. This view presumes that human male sex-ually aggressive behavior was once adaptive and has a biological component thatwas/is heritable.

Other causal accounts emphasize the symbolic meaning of male and female bod-ies, arguing that a heterosexist culture conceives of a man’s body as strong andimpenetrable, while deeming a woman’s body naturally violable. Such a way ofimagining the gendered body, often fueled by authoritative scientific accounts, canlead men to feel that they are capable of, and even prone to, rape, while leadingpeople to act as though women’s bodies are rapeable and incapable of stopping aman. Rape may be caused by various combinations of factors. For example, aggra-vated, serial rape is likely caused by a combination of factors different from thosecausing marital rape. See also: Advertising; Blame the Victim Syndrome; CampusRape; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: Tim Beneke, Men on Rape (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982); Jac-quelyn Dowd Hall, “The Mind That Burns in Each Body: Women, Rape, and Racial Vio-lence,” Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983);Neal King, “Knowing Women: Straight Men and Sexual Certainty,” Gender & Society 17.6(December 2003): 861–877; Laura Lederer, Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography(New York: William Morrow, 1980); Nancy Matthews, Confronting Rape: The Feminist

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Anti-Rape Movement and the State (New York: Routledge, 1994); Martha McCaughey, RealKnockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense (New York: New York Uni-versity Press, 1997); Stephen Montagna, “Men-Only Spaces as Effective Sites for Educationand Transformation in the Battle to End Sexual Assault,” in Just Sex: Students Rewrite theRules on Sex, Violence, and Campus Activism, ed. Jodi Gold and Susan Villari (Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 181–188; Peggy Reeves Sanday, Fraternity Gang Rape:Sex, Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus (New York: New York University Press, 1990;Michael Scarce, Male on Male Rape: The Hidden Toll of Stigma and Shame (New York:Perseus, 1997); Diana Scully, Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists(Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990); Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural Historyof Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).

MARTHA MCCAUGHEY

RAPE, DEFINITIONS OF. The definition of rape varies by time period, place, andgender. A common perception of rape is that it involves the nonconsensual penilepenetration of the vagina—per vim stuprum, or “intercourse by force,” as the an-cient Romans termed it. Many countries define rape as such. For example, in theCzech Republic, only vaginal penetration is considered to be rape, while oral oranal penetration must be prosecuted under blackmail laws. In Namibia, vaginalpenetration is also central to the definition of rape, though penetration may be onlypartial. It also must have been the intention of the accused to penetrate the victim’svagina, though it is difficult to understand how such an action could occur acci-dentally. In Fiji, only vaginal penetration by the penis is considered rape. However,if a husband forces his wife to have intercourse with him, this is not considered tobe rape or a crime. This has been the case throughout much of history and is thecase in many nations today. Bahamian law specifically exempts spouses from beingcharged with rape. By 2000, only 26 countries worldwide had laws recognizingmarital rape, among them Australia, Austria, Barbados, Bulgaria, Canada, Den-mark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Honduras, Iceland, Ireland, Mexico, Namibia,New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Trin-idad/Tobago, and the United Kingdom. Marital rape became a crime in Zimbabwein 2001. In the United States, marital rape is also illegal, though 33 states havequalifications concerning the amount of force necessary for a nonconsensual sexualact in marriage to be considered rape. Some countries like Colombia provide lighterpenalties for marital rape because lack of consent is difficult to prove within aconjugal situation. It is also difficult to prove in the case of prostitutes. Medievalcanon law declared it impossible to rape a prostitute, and many contemporarysecular courts concurred.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, some countries adopted broader defi-nitions of rape. In 1996, the Italian government ruled that proof of premeditationwas no longer necessary to prove rape. In 1997, Germany passed new rape lawsthat recognized acts of sexual violence not involving penetration as rape. Germanyalso expanded the definition of force to include psychological as well as physicalcoercion. These laws are written in gender-neutral language, thereby acknowledgingthat men as well as women may be the target of sexual violence and that womenas well as men may be the assailant. Many countries still define a sexual assaultwhere both the victim and the assailant are men as sodomy and not rape. Danishlaw recognizes as rape acts of sexual violation it calls “equivalent” to penile pen-etration of the vagina. These can include anal, oral, or vaginal penetration by the

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penis or any other body part or foreign object. The broadest definition of rape isthat employed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (working for theUnited Nations) in 1998. The Tribunal considered rape to be a war crime and anact of genocide and further defined it as “a physical invasion of a sexual nature,committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive.” This definitiondoes not limit the type of sexual act, the gender of the victim, or the sets of cir-cumstances that can be deemed coercive.

Another factor involved in defining rape is identifying the victim of the crime.While it is the woman who is attacked and suffers the physical and emotionaltrauma, according to the laws of many states, past and present, it is not the womanagainst whom the crime is legally committed. Among the medieval English andNdebele of Africa, compensation was paid to the father or husband of the woman.In modern Zimbabwe and Canada, rape is a crime against the state, not an indi-vidual.

The rape laws of most countries also make distinctions based on the age of thevictim. Unlike the situation of marital rape, the age of the victim has long beenconsidered a factor in determining whether an act of sexual intercourse is definedas rape (that is, consensual or nonconsensual). Generally, if the victim is a legalminor, consent is supposed to be irrelevant. Minors are not thought to be capableof making informed decisions about whether to engage in sexual intercourse. InEnglish rape laws, this special distinction regarding the rape of a minor has beenin effect since 1576 when a separate law was established to deal with the rape ofgirls 10 years of age and under. Three centuries earlier, Statute of Westminster I(1275) had deemed consent a nonissue when the victim was under the age of 12.However, Statute of Westminster II (1285) only confused matters, and it was notuntil 1576 that any further attempt was made to deal with the rape of a minor.The age of consent varies from country to country: In Paraguay, it is 12; Canada,14; Swaziland, 18. In Namibia, a girl cannot consent to sexual intercourse until sheis 12, but a boy may by the age of 7.

Opinion has varied according to time and place as to what sort of crime rape is.Should it be considered primarily a crime of violence? Perhaps its sexual natureshould be emphasized? Kim Philips’s study of legal treatises, statutes, and trialrecords reveals that in England rape changed from being considered a crime ofviolence (twelfth–early thirteenth century) to a crime of sex (early thirteenth–latefourteenth century) to a property crime (late fourteenth–late fifteenth century). Seealso: Rape History in the United States; Rape Law; Statutory Rape.

Suggested Reading: Sophie Day, “What Counts as Rape? Physical Assault and BrokenContracts: Contrasting Views of Rape among London Sex Workers,” in Sex and Violence:Issues in Representation and Experience, ed. Penelope Harvey and Peter Gow (New York:Routledge, 1994), 172–189; Kim M. Philips, “Written on the Body: Reading Rape from theTwelfth to Fifteenth Centuries,” in Medieval Women and the Law, ed. Noel James Menuge(Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2000), 125–144.

TONYA MARIE LAMBERT

RAPE, ABUSE & INCEST NATIONAL NETWORK (RAINN). Founded in 1994by Scott Berkowitz with support from Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, andsinger/songwriter Tori Amos, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN) maintains a national rape and sexual abuse hotline that connects callers

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to local rape counseling centers, as well as a Web site (http://www.rainn.org) thatprovides information about the problem of sexual assault. In this way, RAINNworks to bring national attention to the issue of rape and sexual abuse while at thesame time linking its victims to the resources of their communities. The NationalSexual Assault Hotline, (800) 656-HOPE, automatically forwards callers to theirnearest local rape counseling center. In 2003, RAINN maintained affiliations withover 1,000 counseling organizations, providing connections to all of the rape crisiscenters in 24 states, with less coverage in other states. By March 2003 the NationalSexual Assault Hotline had received 600,000 calls, and its call volume had increasednearly 25 percent compared to the previous year. RAINN attributed this to anexpansion of its outreach efforts, including promotions appearing in the nationalmedia. For instance, a public service announcement following a Lifetime Networkspecial on sexual assault led to a 75 percent increase in calls to the hotline. In 1997Congress honored RAINN both for its work with crime victims and for its efficientoperation as a not-for-profit, non-government-funded organization. RAINN reliescompletely on donations from individuals and corporations and has been laudedas an example of the private sector’s ability to provide a valuable public service.RAINN maintains its national offices in Washington, D.C. See also: Rape Educa-tion; Rape Prevention.

SHARON A. KOWALSKY

RAPE COUNSELING. In One Night: Realities of Rape, a 2002 book by rapesurvivor Cathy Winkler contends that rape victims are raped three times. First, theyare raped by the perpetrator of the crime, then they are raped by the social systemthat frequently blames the victim of the rape. Finally, Winkler believes that rapevictims are raped by the legal system that fails to provide justice. In 1986, the filmThe Ladies Club depicted a group of women who were traumatized not only bythe man who had raped them but also by the legal system that refused to enactjustice. In retaliation, the group of women, which included a surgeon, castrated therapist. The film illustrated the rage and frustration experienced by most rape vic-tims. Rape victims tend to divide their lives into two periods: before and after therape. In “Rape Poem,” poet Marge Piercy compares being raped to “being pusheddown a flight of cement steps . . . being run over by a truck . . . being bitten on theankle by a rattlesnake . . . and going headfirst through a windshield.”

The support system that surrounds the rape victim is significant in the recoveryprocess. Victims who are able to talk about the rape experience and their feelingsheal more quickly than those who remain silent. Some victims find it easier to talkto an objective listener, such as a rape crisis counselor, than to talk with familyand friends. The traumas that accompany the crime of rape may also call for pro-fessional counseling. This professional may be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or apsychiatric social worker. Various studies have shown that rape victims who seekcounseling suffer less long-lasting trauma than those who do not.

The aftermath of rape may stay with a rape victim for the rest of her/his life, butcounseling may reduce the severity of the trauma. Survivors of rape experience whathas been identified as rape trauma syndrome (RTS), a form of posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD). Rape survivors usually go through four stages of trauma on theirway to recovery: shock and disbelief; confusion, fear, depression, and anger; reso-lution and coping; and adjustment. They may also experience feelings of helpless-

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ness, guilt, degradation, dependency, vulnerability, hysteria, and embarrassment.Studies have revealed that up to 94 percent of rape survivors exhibit signs of RTSwithin one week of the rape, and up to 50 percent continue to display traumasymptoms over the next 12 months. Those who are close to the rape victim mayalso experience the effects of trauma, particularly a sexual partner or a parent.Studies have revealed that 60 to 80 percent of intimate sexual relationships do notsurvive after a partner is raped. Parents often feel they have failed as parents becausethey could not protect their child.

Rape victims may also experience a number of physical symptoms associated withrape trauma. These may include disturbances in sleep patterns, nightmares, changesin appetite, feelings of numbness, nausea, vomiting, gastric disturbances, and phys-ical pain or discomfort. Evidence suggests that rape victims, particularly those whoare victims of sustained abuse, may be more likely to develop serious disease, suchas diabetes, gynecological conditions, and Parkinson’s disease. In extreme cases, therape victim may lose the ability to function normally. For example, a rape victimmay choose to stay in bed rather than face the emotional and/or physical problemsthat seem insurmountable. Some rape victims find it impossible to deal with thetrauma, and evidence shows that between 17 and 20 percent of rape victims attemptsuicide. Alcohol, drug abuse, and clinical depression are frequent consequences ofrape. Rape counselors may work with medical doctors or other professionals toprovide comprehensive care for survivors of rape.

All rape victims do not handle trauma in the same way. A child who knows andloves her/his attacker may experience the aftermath of rape differently from a childwho is raped by a stranger. A victim of sustained sexual abuse may experiencedeeper trauma than the victim of a single attack. An adolescent rape victim mayhave trouble engaging in normal dating activity. A woman who is raped by anintimate sexual partner or a date may experience a deep-rooted distrust in otherrelationships. A woman who is raped by a stranger may feel guilt and wonderwhether she encouraged it by her attire or by being in a particular location. A blackwoman may experience rape trauma differently than a white woman or a victim ofan Eastern culture. An elderly rape victim or a mentally challenged individual maybe unable to fully comprehend rape trauma. A heterosexual male may begin todoubt his own sexual orientation. A homosexual male may decide not to report arape because of a perceived bias against gay men in general. A prisoner who israped may not be in a position to stay away from his/her attackers and may nothave access to needed support and counseling. Because rape is experienced in uniqueways and because recovery involves a number of distinct variables, a professionallytrained rape counselor may be needed to meet individual counseling needs.

When a rape victim seeks the help of a professional counselor, the counselor mayuse the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual toidentify the presence and extent of posttraumatic stress disorder. The counselor willquestion the rape victim about the rape to determine the level of threat involvedand specific features of the attack. Counselors will question the rape victim aboutmemories and dreams of the rape and the presence of particular stimuli that areconnected to the experience. The counselor will be interested in how the rape victimdeals with daily activities and with interrelationships. The rape survivor may ex-perience all or some of the following symptoms: feelings of detachment and con-striction, a lack of interest in her/his surroundings, sleep disturbance, irritability,difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response, increased per-

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spiration or heart rate, change in appetite, increased nervousness, body image dis-turbance, sexual problems, self-blame, low self-esteem, and fear of being alone. Allof these symptoms are normal reactions to severe trauma and should respond toprofessional counseling. See also: Rape Crisis Centers.

Suggested Reading: Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, “Rape TraumaSyndrome,” American Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1974): 981–986; Robert Hazelwood andAnn Wolbert Burgess, Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: A Multidisciplinary Approach(Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001); Linda Ledray, Recovering from Rape (New York: HenryHolt, 1994); Marge Piercy, “Rape Poem,” in Circles on the Water (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1982), 164–165; Cathy Winkler, One Night: Realities of Rape (Walnut Creed, CA:Altamira, 2002).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

RAPE CRISIS CENTERS. As a result of the women’s movement of the 1960s and1970s, women began to develop a clearer understanding of rape and its aftermath.In 1971, New York Feminists held a Rape Speak Out to inform women about theprevalence of rape in the United States and to motivate feminists to form rape crisisgroups. The first rape crisis center was established in Washington, DC in 1972 andwas followed by centers in Los Angeles, California, and Seattle, Washington. It wasa point of pride in most early centers not to accept funding from what was consid-ered the patriarchal power structure. In 1974, Pittsburgh Action against Rape be-came the first rape crisis center to receive federal funding, and by the 1990s rapecrisis centers had become mainstream, with the majority of centers accepting publicfunding, frequently from United Way or from law enforcement agencies. In 1994,the Violence against Women Act of 1994 funded grants for rape crisis centersthrough the Department of Justice. Early rape crisis centers tended to be run byuntrained volunteers. With the shift to government funding, rape crisis centersmoved toward formal organizational structures, the use of professionals as coun-selors, and extensive training of volunteers. Rape crisis centers were formed oncollege campuses, where students were particularly vulnerable to date rape or ac-quaintance rape because of the prevalence of alcohol, drugs, and a party atmos-phere. By 2001, over 1,200 rape crisis centers had been established around thecountry, an average of 24 per state.

Typical functions of rape crisis centers include providing 24/7 hotlines; individualor group counseling; escort service to police stations, hospitals, and courts; adviceon testing for pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases; and edu-cating the public about rape, rape prevention, and rape counseling. Antirape edu-cation also includes teaching police officers, who are often the first on the scene ofa rape, not to blame the victim by asking insensitive questions. Many law enforce-ment agencies have formed their own task forces to educate personnel on the uniqueproblems of rape investigations, and hospitals sometimes provide nurses trained inrape crisis. Former Representative Constance Morella (R–MD) addressed the fre-quent complaint that rape victims do not always receive adequate emergency careby sponsoring the Compassionate Care for Female Sexual Assault Survivors Act tomandate access to contraception in emergency rooms. The bill remained in com-mittee in 2003 but was expected to be reintroduced in 2004.

In 1974 the concept of rape trauma syndrome (RTS), a form of posttraumaticstress disorder, was promulgated. Understanding what a victim is experiencing helps

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counselors to devise the proper treatment. One study revealed that 94 percent ofrape victims experience RTS within a week of the attack, and 50 percent continuedto suffer from RTS up to a year after the attack. Normally, one would expect arape victim to call a rape crisis center immediately; but, in practice, centers havereceived calls as long as 20 years after the rape occurred. The Rape, Abuse & IncestNational Network (RAINN) offers a 24/7 hotline at 800-656-HOPE or instant Webaccess at http://www.rainn.org/ to link women to state rape crisis centers in theirareas.

The aftermath of rape is extensive and has a tendency to spiral out toward every-one it touches. In addition to the victim and her family and friends, the traumaaffects rape crisis counselors, police officers, victims’ advocates, and lawyers. Notonly do those who work with rape victims share the emotional burden, but theybecome highly frustrated over the low rate of prosecutions and the knowledge that98 percent of accused rapists never serve time in prison. Modern definitions of rapeinclude rape of children and men as well as rape of adult women and encompassvarious sexual acts in addition to the traditional definition of penetration of thevagina by the penis. Even though the expanded definition indicates increased aware-ness of rape, it is somewhat frustrating because rape crisis workers realize that theoverall goal of eradicating rape has never been, and may never be, met. See also:Rape Kit.

Suggested Reading: Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, “Rape TraumaSyndrome,” American Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1974): 981–986; Linda Ledray, Recoveringfrom Rape (New York: Henry Holt, 1994); Mary E. Odem and Judy Clay-Warner, eds.,Confronting Rape and Sexual Assault (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998); “Na-tional Sexual Assault Hotline,” Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), http://www.rainn.org/; Claire M. Renzetti et al., eds., Sourcebook on Violence against Women(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

RAPE CULTURE. A rape culture is one in which rape and other sexual violenceagainst women and children are both prevalent and considered the norm. In a rapeculture, rape and sexual violence are accepted as inevitable and are not challenged.The term rape culture originated in the 1970s during the second-wave feministmovement and is often used to describe contemporary American culture as a whole.

A rape culture, according to the editors of Transforming a Rape Culture, “is acomplex set of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violenceagainst women.” A rape culture believes that sexual aggression in men is biologi-cally determined, rather than learned behavior. In turn, it considers women to besexually passive and meant to be dominated by men. Consequentially, a normalsexual encounter is represented as a heterosexual man forcing himself upon awoman. Thus in a rape culture, rape is the model for most sexual activity.

A rape culture supports rape and violence by tolerating such abuse. In regard tocriminal justice, the number of sexual assaults is high, while the rate of arrests,prosecutions, and convictions of assailants is low. Excuses are often found to ex-plain why men commit rape, or why the violence against the victim is justified.Many times the rapist’s actions are implied to be out of his control: He simplycould not help himself. This viewpoint positions rape as an expression of sexualdesire, rather than the enactment of power, control, and anger. Women are social-

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ized into believing that men are naturally sexual aggressors and that it is a woman’sresponsibility to take precautions against being attacked. A rape culture blames theassault on the actions of the victim (such as her walking alone, drinking alcohol,or being in a date’s apartment), rather than questioning the behavior of the rapist.

A rape culture reinforces its beliefs by promoting rape myths, false or biasedinformation about rape, rape victims, and rapists. Rape myths work to deny thatinstances of forced or coerced sex are actually rape. Rape myths make excuses forthe rapist or minimize the effects of the rape on the victim. As a whole, rape mythselide the phenomenon of rape, refusing to acknowledge that any problem exists.Examples of rape myths include the following: Women secretly want to be raped;it is rape only if a weapon is used; and women are aroused by sexual violence. Ina rape culture, rape myths are learned and perpetuated by the general culture, butespecially the media: in advertisements, television shows, films, and music videos.

Images of sex and violence are intertwined in a rape culture. The media oftenportrays normal sex as sadomasochistic, “a dirty, low, and violent act involvingthe domination of a male over a female” (Herman, 39). Rape, when portrayed assuch, is often eroticized and depicted as “rough, unwanted sex, that is neverthelesssexy” (Pearson, 12). At times the rape victim is even portrayed as being arousedby the assault, having subconsciously wanted to have sex with her attacker. Thisportrayal of rape in the media trains men to become aroused by violent sex. In arape culture, rarely is sex portrayed as shared, loving intimacy; instead, violentimagery abounds that fosters the mentality that there is little difference betweenregular sex and rape.

Feminist critics believe that rape culture will flourish as long as women do notrealize the same legal, economic, and social privileges as men. In turn, the rapeculture will continue to legitimatize rape and sexual violence as normal expressionsof male sexuality, and more women and children will be victimized as a result. Inorder to eliminate rape, many see that the mechanisms of the rape culture first needto be confronted. See also: Advertising; “Blaming the Victim” Syndrome.

Suggested Reading: Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth, Transforming aRape Culture (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1993); Dianne F. Herman, “The Rape Cul-ture,” in Women: A Feminist Perspective, ed. Jo Freeman (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield,1989), 20–44; Alyn Pearson, “Rape Culture: It’s All Around Us,” off our backs 30.8 (August2000): 12.

ROBIN E. FIELD

RAPE EDUCATION. Rape education, an integral part of rape prevention, seeksto educate women, men, and children about rape. Educational programs can varyin purpose, presentation topics, duration, and target audience. They may be offeredat a community center, a rape crisis center, a religious institution, at summer camp,in a classroom, or in the workplace. Some educational programs are tailored ac-cording to age, sex, race/ethnicity, physical ability, and personal need. Some use anexclusive curriculum and audience in order to address group-specific needs, whileothers will more broadly address rape for a general audience.

A rape education curriculum may include a discussion of the facts and myths ofrape, the legal definition and aspects of prosecution, a distinction between rape andsex, ways to effectively communicate about sex, rape avoidance and self-defenseoptions, what to do if you or someone you know is raped, and resources for learn-

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ing more and getting help. One successful program, “Safe, Sane, and Sexy,” wasdeveloped by the Rape Education and Prevention Program at Ohio State Universityin 1983. Part of a series of workshops for incoming first-year students, it teacheswomen and men how to communicate about sex, how to understand the differencebetween rape and consensual sex, the relationship of alcohol and drugs to consen-sual sex, birth control and infection prevention options, and how to recognize warn-ing signs of an unsafe situation.

One of the challenges for effective rape education is the inclusion of resourcesand information that represents and reaches a diverse population while also ade-quately addressing specific cultural concerns. For instance, programs may be forwomen only, Asian women, male survivors, or visually impaired individuals. Awomen-only rape education program can address gender-specific concerns relatedto violence against women and women’s self-defense. This may meet the needs ofmany women, yet it inadequately addresses important and specific issues such asexperienced by an immigrant woman dependent on her abuser, or the conflict anAfrican American woman may experience reporting her rape by a black man dueto racism and societal alienation of black men. In other words, personal experiencesand educational needs vary according to individual and cultural factors. Thus, ex-perts recommend that programs include both broad-based comprehensive programsand narrow-focused group or need-specific programs.

Rape education programs are often included in rape prevention programs andtherefore may offer services other than educational presentations. They may providecounseling and support group services, victim advocacy, crisis intervention, distri-bution of printed educational materials, and community or college activism. Forexample, “Take Back the Night,” an annual antiviolence against women marchand speak-out that started in the 1970s, combines rape education and preventionefforts. Participants learn about rape through guest speakers, printed material, skits,poetry readings, personal stories, and self-defense and martial arts demonstrations,while also taking part in raising community awareness and actively reclaiming theright to be free of violence. This is part of a broader prevention agenda wherebycommunity members are informed about antiviolence resources and services, vol-unteer opportunities, and antirape and social justice organizations.

While women have been at the forefront of rape education and prevention efforts,it is important to note that men are increasingly active in this movement. Since the1990s, men have worked in alliance with women to form groups to educate them-selves and other men in an effort to stop rape. One such program, Men Can StopRape, is a nationally recognized group of men and women based in Washington,D.C. Their mission is to teach men and boys to be actively involved in ending men’sviolence through awareness, activism, and education.

The benefits of rape education are numerous. They facilitate shared experiences,build solidarity, dispel myths, bring awareness to various groups, share resources,decrease victim blame, teach self-defense and assertiveness skills, raise awarenessabout consensual and safer sex, and promote violence prevention.

Suggested Reading: Kimberly Lonsway and Chevon Kothari, “Acquaintance Rape Educa-tion: Evaluating the Impact of a Mandatory Intervention,” Psychology of Women Quarterly24.3 (September 2000): 220–232; “A Rape Prevention Program in an Urban Area: Com-munity Action Strategies to Stop Rape,” Signs 5.3 (1980): 238–241; Jonathan C. Stillerman,“Preventing Rape: A Male and Female Approach,” 1999, World College Health, http://

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www.worldcollegehealth.org/020399b.htm; Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape (NewYork: Harper & Row, 1988).

HEATHER SCHMIDT

RAPE HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Thephysical act of rape has a long history across time and space. How the act of rapewill be interpreted by society and punished by the courts is constructed by the socialand cultural context in which it occurs. The east coast of North America in theseventeenth century presented some particularly distinguishing features. These set-tlements, huddled along the Atlantic Ocean, formed the nucleus of the future UnitedStates. In the seventeenth century, however, they were still a series of separate col-onies with legal institutions shaped by both their relationship to England and theirown particular environments. In addition to the indigenous inhabitants, the popu-lation consisted of new arrivals of both European and African descent, some whowere free and some who were slaves or indentured servants. Together these factorsmake discussion of rape in seventeenth-century America a complicated one.

In the oldest southern colonies, Virginia and Maryland, English law was adoptedwith regard to rape. The crime of rape was a capital offense and first had to beheard by a grand jury. If the grand jury brought in a true bill, the case was triedby a petit jury in the Virginia General Court. This court had jurisdiction overcriminal offenses affecting the life or well-being of individuals, and the juries wererequired to come in with unanimous verdicts. Rape was rarely brought to the at-tention of courts; in fact, the extant General Court records reveal no such casesprior to 1670, and only one has been found at the county level. These statisticalfindings do not mean that rape was nonexistent in the southern colonies; rather, itcan be assumed that those few women who did make charges were women whodefied legal, social, and cultural barriers and wide-ranging fears for their survival.Legally, women did not serve as judges or jurors, though they could be called totestify. It was other more visceral and personal matters that caused women to fearcharging men with rape or to win unanimous verdicts from male juries if they did.There is evidence that southern magistrates simply did not believe women’s accu-sations, unless they were against black men. The powerful landowning men of thesouthern colonies were often related by marriage and not inclined to turn againsteach other in questionable behavior related to women or slaves. In addition, nu-merous factors abridged women’s abilities to charge and testify against men incourt. Isolation on far-flung landholdings, fear of physical force, the fact that in-dentured servants could be sold or have their terms extended as punishment, andthe fact that wives could not legally be raped all contributed to women’s fears tolegally challenge men’s violent sexual behavior. Taken together, such factors andfears provided a chilly climate for women who wanted to charge men with rape orattempted rape.

For slaves, the matter of rape was one fraught with both sexual and economicpolitics. Female slaves did not legally own their bodies; their masters did. As aresult, the sexual assault of slave women by their masters, male members of hisfamily, and by extension, friends and white men in general, was simply not regardedas a crime. The South stereotyped black men as oversexed, brutal, and especiallydangerous to white women. Statutory laws in the southern colonies reflect thatanxiety. The rape of a white woman by a slave was a capital crime, and slaves

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convicted of attempted rape could be castrated. The facts reveal a different reality,however. Because slave men were expensive and highly necessary property, whitejudges and juries made exceptions for both crimes. This was especially true if anyshadow could be cast on the behavior or reputation of the woman. This was morelikely the case if the woman was poor and perceived as not acting according to therules of conduct for a Southern “lady.” In the instance of sexual assault, then, sexand class could and did trump race when it came to meting out punishments forrape in the early slave South.

In colonies to the north, the attitudes toward rape were not shaped by the cultureand economics of slavery but by the religious attitudes of Puritanism. Puritan cul-ture predisposed men to believe that women existed to serve men’s needs and hadno right to reject demands of any kind made by men. Puritan men might be pow-erless before God and nature, but they could dominate women and demand theirsubmissiveness. Together these attitudes encouraged some men who were frustratedby their life circumstances, including being unmarried, to force themselves onwomen.

Proof of such observations rests in statistics that show 91 percent of the menaccused of rape or attempted rape were single and used physical strength to committheir crimes, not weapons of violence. In other words, men forced women to submitto them, as they had been taught they should. Attackers often stopped the assaultwhen women proved particularly assertive in their resistance. This undoubtedlyreinforced the stereotype that women who did not sufficiently resist an attack reallywanted to be raped. Servants constituted one-third of victims in New England butonly 10 percent of the female population. Because at least the risk of severe pun-ishment was present if a man was convicted of a sexual assault, the perpetratorwas more likely to choose a young domestic servant working in his home anddependent on him for her livelihood, perhaps even money she earned for her family.Taken together, this offers an explanation for men’s propensity to choose the mostvulnerable and easily available targets.

Rape was a capital offense in the colonies. Continuing a tradition from the Mid-dle Ages, though, the punishment could differ depending on the age and maritalstatus of the woman. The rape of married and espoused women, and girls under10, was considered all the more dreadful because it injured the marital bonds, calledthe legitimacy of children into question, and compromised men’s legal relationshipto wives and minor daughters established through coverture. Cotton Mather, aleading Puritan clergyman for three-plus decades in the seventeenth century, pre-scribed fines, whipping, or marriage (if the victim consented) in the instance ofsingle women being raped. The fines were partially allocated to the father. Girlsunder 10 were protected because, as in a statutory rape today, it was believed thatthey could not properly consent to intercourse. Moreover, because the Bible sawintercourse as an act of procreation, not possible with a 10-year-old girl, it wasseen as an even more heinous crime, similar to sodomy and bestiality.

Just as it is today, accusing a man of rape was a difficult proposition. NewEngland Puritans believed the testimony of female accusers because they thoughtsuch women would be so terrorized by the attack that they surely would resist, andif overpowered, they would not be able to lie about the incident. However, womenwho accused men of rape also found themselves challenged about whether theyresisted enough or cried out when the attack occurred. A few women, in fact, werepunished for complicity because the authorities did not believe they had resisted

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enough. Puritans also believed that a woman had to have an orgasm in order toconceive, so if she accused someone of rape and then turned out to be pregnant,they assumed she must have given her consent to the act and lied about the accused.If it was determined at a later date that the woman had lied about the incident, shecould be charged with either adultery or fornication. Given the difficulties of beingbelieved, the threat of losing your reputation, or even the possibility of being con-victed of a crime, it is not surprising that, as in the southern colonies, few rapeswere actually reported.

Of the men accused of rape in seventeenth-century New England, six were hangedand one was branded, but the great majority were whipped or fined. About one-third were acquitted or the disposition was unknown. In half the cases, words otherthan rape were used to describe the incident, indicating that some rape was seen tobe more odious than other rapes, and perhaps making sure that the perpetratorcould avoid the death penalty. Discrimination took form in New England in atti-tudes toward Native American men, as it did in the South toward African Americanmen. An Indian man who raped a nine-year-old Indian girl was sold into servitude,but a white man who raped an Indian woman only received a fine. See also: In-dentured Servitude; Rape Law; Slavery.

Suggested Reading: Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution in Early America (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Lyle Koehler, A Search for Power: The Weaker Sexin Seventeenth-Century New England (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980); Mary BethNorton, Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American So-ciety (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Merril D. Smith, ed., Sex without Consent: Rapeand Sexual Coercion in America (New York: New York University Press, 2001); DianeMiller Somerville, “Rape, Race, and Castration in Slave Law in the Colonial and EarlySouth,” in The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton andMichele Gillespie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

DONNA COOPER GRAVES

RAPE HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.Eighteenth-century Americans understood rape as penis-vagina sexual intercoursecommitted with physical force and against a woman’s will. They had no conceptof sexual battery nor of any prosecutable sexual assault that did not include anattempt at sexual intercourse. Only women were understood to be victims of rape.(Male-male sodomy was a crime whether forced or consensual.) Sexual intercoursewith girls under 10 years old was considered rape regardless of their degree ofconsent. Marital rape was an impossibility—women gave their perpetual consentto their husband’s sexual overtures by saying, “I do” at marriage. For most of theeighteenth century, rape was a capital crime, punishable by death. (After the Amer-ican Revolution, some states began to eliminate the death penalty, but a rape con-viction could still lead to decades of incarceration.)

However, early American courts applied such severe penalties neither equally norfrequently: Courts were especially hesitant to execute upstanding white men forrape. Indeed, all rape prosecutions were implicitly structured along racial lines.Cases involving raped white women were much more likely to be prosecuted thanthose involving women of color. Conversely, nonwhite (especially African Ameri-can) defendants were far more common targets of rape prosecutions than werewhite men. These distorted prosecutions contributed to the myth—still powerfultoday—that black men were likely to rape white women.

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All women in eighteenth-century America might fall victim to a sexual assault,but some women had far more protection against sexual attackers than did others.Enslaved and African American women had the least legal and social protectionfrom rape. Legally, a white man could be prosecuted for raping an enslaved AfricanAmerican woman. However, many colonies passed laws that prevented slaves fromtestifying against whites in court. Since a victim’s testimony was usually crucial toa successful prosecution, few slaves could win a rape prosecution against any whiteman. Even free African American women could rarely bring a rape prosecutionagainst white men, because early Americans believed that black women were nat-urally promiscuous and thus unlikely to resist a rape. Accordingly, there is noknown conviction of a white man for raping a slave or free African Americanwoman in the eighteenth century, even though we know that many white menforced slaves to have sexual relations with them. The eighteenth-century judicialsystem purposefully ignored the many rapes of nonwhite women: more than 95percent of the victims of prosecuted rapes were white.

Although white women had more legal protection after a rape, reporting andprosecuting a sexual assault was never easy. A victim had to convince her husbandor father to take her to court to complain about the attack, then had to tell amagistrate what had happened, and then had to repeat her story to courtroomlawyers, jury members, and judges. Many legal officials believed that women oftenlied about rape, so would try to disprove women’s stories whenever possible. Be-cause respectable women were supposed to resist sexual relations, legal officialsbelieved that women would charge men with rape to preserve their reputation whenthey regretted having illicit, though consensual, sexual relations. However, there islittle evidence of such false rape charges in early American court records. Con-versely, there is much evidence that legal officials carefully cross-examined rapevictims, trying to prove that they had not truly resisted a sexual attack. Victimscould prove their resistance by showing that they had physical injuries, that theyhad cried for help, that they immediately filed charges, and that they were sexuallychaste. These standards ignored the ways that sexual assaults often occurred andthe many layers of mediation by family and friends that usually preceded a legalcomplaint. In many ways, eighteenth-century rape victims were considered guiltyof consenting to the sexual interaction unless they could prove their innocence. Suchunrealistic expectations and unfair treatment meant that many victims chose toavoid legal involvement after a sexual attack.

Courts were most likely to believe a white woman’s claim of rape against a blackman. All colonies convicted black men of rape more often than white men. Blackmen were often tried at separate courts without many legal protections. Most no-tably, they could be convicted by a majority decision, rather than the unanimousjury decision required for whites. Many colonies also passed special laws mandatingexceptionally harsh punishments for slaves who raped or tried to rape whitewomen. Southern colonies that abolished the death penalty for white rapists con-tinued sentencing black rapists to death well into the nineteenth century. Overall,about three-quarters of the men executed for rape in the eighteenth-century wereof African descent. Black men could also be executed for attempted rape, whilewhite men would usually be punished with a fine, whipping, or imprisonment. Atevery stage of prosecution, black defendants were treated much more harshly thanwhite defendants.

While colonial Americans originally feared that Native American men would rape

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Anglo-American women during wartime, by the eighteenth century, they believedthat Native American men were unlikely to rape white female captives. Many Na-tive Americans believed that sexual relations would weaken a warrior’s powers, sowould refrain from all intercourse (including rape) during war. Some Native Amer-ican leaders repeatedly complained, however, that Anglo-American traders andtravelers had sexually assaulted Native American women, but few of these caseswere prosecuted in American courts.

In many ways, eighteenth-century colonists used rape as a tool of colonialism.By harshly punishing nonwhite men for rape of white women, early Americansenacted a sexual system that supported their increasingly racially divided society.Sexual access to white women would be reserved as a privilege of white men, andprotection from sexual attacks would be reserved to white women. Together, thistreatment of rape turned a sexual attack on a woman into a means to institution-alize the racial power inequities and racial discrimination that have continued forcenturies. See also: Interracial Rape; Slavery.

Suggested Reading: Sharon Block, “Lines of Color, Sex, and Service: Comparative SexualCoercion in Early America,” in Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North AmericanHistory, ed. Martha Hodes (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 141–163; Cor-nelia Hughes Dayton, Women before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut,1699–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 231–284; Alice Nash,“ ‘None of the Women Were Abused’: Indigenous Contexts for the Treatment of WomenCaptives in the Northeast,” in Sex without Consent: Rape and Sexual Coercion in America,ed. Merril D. Smith (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 10–26.

SHARON BLOCK

RAPE HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: NINETEENTH CENTURY. Rapewas seen as a crime throughout the nineteenth century. The statutes of virtuallyevery state and territory that made up the United States in the nineteenth centurydefined the crime of rape generally as the unlawful carnal knowledge of a womanby a man forcibly and against her will. From a reading of the statutes, it wouldseem that one could easily discern when a man had raped a woman and that all aprosecuting attorney had to prove to earn a conviction was that the defendant hadforced his accuser to have sexual relations with him. Such was not the case, how-ever, because American law in general and rape law in particular are far morecomplicated when put into practice.

Men were highly suspicious of women who brought a rape charge. Nineteenth-century legal and medical writers frequently invoked the admonition of Lord Mat-thew Hale, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in England from 1671 to 1676, whowarned that while rape was a serious offense worthy of severe punishment, it wasalso a charge that women tended to bring out of spite or embarrassment. Somelegal authorities insisted that women accused men of rape to blackmail them intomarriage or get money or exact revenge. They also worried that a woman mightclaim she had been raped when she had merely been seduced. These were points ofconcern because many legal officials believed that if jurors—and only men servedon juries in the nineteenth century—allowed their emotions to govern their intel-lects, they would convict innocent men of rape. For this reason, judges createdexceptional rules of law intended to protect defendants in rape cases, and theymodified or altered generally accepted legal doctrines to make it difficult for a

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woman to prove that she had been raped. Authorities who insisted that defendantsin rape trials needed specially crafted rules to protect them from false accusationsoffered no proof that women who brought rape complaints did so out of spite orfor purposes of blackmail.

Rape convictions were difficult, though not impossible, to achieve in the nine-teenth century. Two key elements of the crime of rape were force and resistance.For an act of sexual intercourse to constitute a rape, most courts required proofthat the defendant had used actual force to accomplish his end, and all courtsmandated proof of penile penetration. Merely threatening a woman with a knifeor a gun did not suffice as the kind of force the law demanded for a rape conviction.Rather, to be actual force, the man had to stab or shoot or in some way physicallymaim the woman. Fraud was not an element of rape, unless the statute expresslystated that it was. A woman could not claim rape if she had been tricked into givingher consent. To constitute resistance, a woman had to fend off her attacker suc-cessfully, unless she could show that an extenuating circumstance had preventedher from so doing. To judges and jurors, consummation indicated consent, or atleast strongly suggested it. Judges devised the “half consent” and the “ultimateconsent” doctrines for cases where women claimed they had resisted to the utmostof their abilities, yet the man still managed to consummate the act. Under the halfconsent doctrine, defendants argued that if the woman’s resistance was equivocal,it amounted to a partial consent, which was as good as a whole consent. Defendantsused the ultimate consent rule to assert that even though their accusers initiallyresisted their efforts at seduction, they eventually gave in and ultimately consentedto the intercourse.

Some women found it more difficult to achieve rape convictions in nineteenth-century courts than others. Social factors such as the race, ethnicity, socioeconomicstatus, or religion of the accused and his accuser influenced rape case outcomes.Slave women occupied a very precarious position because slave codes made themthe chattel property of their masters, who were immune from rape prosecution ifthey forced their slave women to have sexual relations with them. Some historicalevidence indicates, however, that if a man who had no property rights in a slavewoman had intercourse with her without her master’s permission, he may havebeen subject to criminal prosecution. Recently, historians have demonstrated thatthe assertion that black males were prone to rape white females did not prevail inslave times but came about after emancipation. They have also shown that it is arape myth. Urban working-class women had a difficult time convincing jurors toconvict their assailants of rape, as did Hispanic and Asian women living in theWest, because class-biased and racist ideologies portrayed such women as immodestand unchaste.

In the nineteenth century, only a man could commit a rape, and he could commitit only against a woman. A woman could be convicted of a rape as an accompliceif she aided and abetted in the commission of the crime, but she could not becharged as the actual perpetrator. Nineteenth-century rape law did not recognizewhat today is homosexual rape, though a man who compelled another male toengage in sexual relations could be charged with forcible sodomy. Rape law definedsex with female children under a specified age of consent, usually 10 or 12, as rapeeven in the absence of force or resistance. While today such an act is referred to asstatutory rape, in nineteenth-century law, the crime was known as the carnal knowl-

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edge and abuse of an infant female. See also: Hispanics/Latinos; Native Americans;Rape History in the United States; Slavery; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: For important appellate court cases, see People v. Abbot, 19 Wend(NY) 192 (1838); Camp v. State, 3 Ga 417 (1847); Brown v. State, 11 SW 412 (1889). Forimportant treatises, see Joel Prentice Bishop, Commentaries on the Criminal Law, 2nd ed.,2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1858); Emlin McLain, A Treatise on the Criminal Law (Chi-cago: Callaghan and Co., 1897).

MARY BLOCK

RAPE HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: TWENTIETH CENTURY. Defi-nitions of rape and sexual assault have varied from one historical period to anotherand one culture to another. The United States in the twentieth century saw tremen-dous shifts in private and public understandings of this phenomenon. Contempo-rary attitudes toward rape, which continue to evolve, are based in large part on thedevelopments of the twentieth century.

In the first half of the century, discussions of rape generally were taboo, but whenthe issue did arise, it typically treated rape as an expression of sex and passion andnot as violence. The issue involved at least three interlocking themes. The first ofthese was Freudian psychoanalysis and sexology, which had a tremendous popularimpact in the United States, reaching beyond academic and clinical contexts andinto the popular realm. Freudians interpreted rape as perverse sexual behavior andrapists as mentally ill individuals. Freudian psychology viewed rapists as havingsurplus, uncontrollable sex drive. In this view, rapist behavior was an illness to betreated, not a widespread social problem to be prevented. Thus, rape was viewedfrom the perspective of the perpetrator, not the victim.

The second theme that marked most discussions of rape from 1900 to the 1960swas race and racism. The history of rape in the United States is inseparable fromthis theme. In earlier periods, “rape” of enslaved women by their white male ownerswas legally impossible. Black women were stereotyped as promiscuous and indis-criminate in their sexual choices, and black men were portrayed as sexually rav-enous, particularly toward white women. Following slavery, and halfway into the1900s, black men were subjected to extralegal murders called lynching, allegedlyfor the rape of white women but often without formal rape charges and alwayswithout a court conviction. White lynch mobs intimidated the entire African Amer-ican community with threats of violence. Writers such as Ida B. Wells alluded tothe sexual abuse of black women by white men, which received little attention inthe legal realm or in the press. Together, lynching of black men and rape of blackwomen served to reinforce white supremacy once slavery was over. Lynching finallystopped in the 1950s, largely due to the activism of the Association of SouthernWomen for the Prevention of Lynching.

The third theme is that of victim behavior. Legally, rape has always been con-sidered a crime. The law of rape in the United States was inherited from Englishcommon law, which stated that a man committed rape when he had “carnal knowl-edge” of (sexual intercourse with) a woman, not his wife, by force or threat offorce, without her consent and against her will. Until law reforms of the 1970s,rape cases were marked by evidentiary distrust of women’s charges. Most stateshad laws that required corroboration, or independent evidence, of rape claims be-fore a case could be tried. Many state laws required judges to instruct juries that

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rape charges were easy to make and hard to prove, no matter how innocent theaccused. All states exempted husbands from rape charges by their wives, and inpractice, this exemption was extended to their “voluntary social companions.”Women who brought rape complaints found their own sex lives scrutinized forsigns that they had been sexually active prior to the rape; those who had could notexpect prosecutors to move forward with rape charges or juries to convict. Even ifsuch cases went to trial, victims could expect defense attorneys to present evidenceof their previous sexual experiences, creating the impression that a woman who hassaid yes to sex would not say no again. Thus, rape trials often focused greaterattention on the victim than on the perpetrator.

The antirape movement of the 1970s challenged all that was “known” aboutrape. The movement grew out of the feminist mobilization of the 1960s that chal-lenged sexism and discrimination against women in all aspects of society. Antirapecampaigners challenged the myths of rapists and rape victims and redefined thecrime from the victim’s point of view.

The feminist antirape movement developed its analysis of rape not out of psy-chological research or racist stereotypes but out of the testimonies of victims them-selves. In rape speakouts and Take Back the Night marches, victims dispelled manyof the dominant rape myths, some of which still have force. For example, mostrape victims told of rapes by friends, husbands, doctors, employers, and other ac-quaintances—demonstrating that rape was not the act of a few psychotic individ-uals but by men who otherwise fit a “normal” psychological profile and who werepreviously known to the victim. They also testified that most rapes were intraracial,dispelling the myth of the black rape of white women. The antirape movementfound that women’s clothing, behavior, and actions rarely had anything to do withtheir rapes; this prompted a focus on the perpetrator’s behavior rather than thevictim’s.

The antirape campaign sought to redefine rape not as a crime of sexuality andpassion but of violence and control. This was revealed in movement efforts toreform rape laws. One well-known reform was rape shield, which limited the evi-dence of a victim’s sexual past that could be admitted at trial. The movement alsosought to remove the marital exemption for rape, to develop a degree structure forrape, and to remove evidentiary roadblocks to prosecution such as corroborationrequirements. All of these initiatives were an attempt to create victim-friendly rapelaws that would force the legal system to take sexual assault seriously. Thanks tothe antirape movement, many of the misconceptions of rape have been dispelled,all of the states have undergone law reform, and rape crisis centers now providevictims with 24-hour care and advocacy. In spite of these changes, challenges stillpersist: For example, in most jurisdictions, date rape/acquaintance rape is not takenas seriously as rape by a stranger, and overall, myths of black men’s propensity torape white women are strong. In addition, some writers have asserted that feministshave “gone too far” in redefining unwanted sex as rape.

The issue of rape underwent radical transformation in the course of the twentiethcentury. An issue once shrouded in secrecy, racism, and victim blaming is now likelyto be treated quite differently in public policy and popular opinion, and the avail-ability of crisis centers has addressed the needs of victims. It remains to be seenwhether these changes in attitudes and public policy will produce an end to theproblem of rape in our society. See also: Marital Rape; Rape Law; Rape ShieldLaws.

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Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000); Susan Brownmiller, AgainstOur Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); Patricia L.N.Donat and John D’Emilio, “A Feminist Redefinition of Rape and Sexual Assault: HistoricalFoundations and Change,” Journal of Social Issues 48.1 (1992): 9–22; Susan Estrich, RealRape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).

MARIA BEVACQUA

RAPE KIT. A rape kit, also known as a sexual assault evidence kit (SAEK), is acollection of evidence from a rape or sexual abuse victim after an assault. The examvaries by state and situation but can involve the following: a vaginal exam; swab-bing of vagina, anus, and gums; blood and urine samples; combing of pubic hair;pulling of hairs from pubic area and head; photographing of bruises, cuts, orabrasions; scraping underneath or clipping of fingernails; taking of victim’s under-wear; and hearing the victim’s account of the assault. This extensive examinationmay provide blood, semen, hair, saliva, skin, or fibers—all of which could aid inarresting and convicting a suspect. Exams are completed by emergency room doc-tors, nurse practitioners, or a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE), a speciallytrained forensic nurse examiner. The examination, handling, collecting, and assem-bling of samples for the rape kit can take up to four hours, after which the contentsof the kit becomes evidence and is handed over to police.

Victims seeking help within 48 to 72 hours after an assault are typically encour-aged to have a rape kit collected so that the physical evidence will be on file if thevictim or state chooses to prosecute. When evidence is collected properly, the kitcan be used by police and courts to convict rapists by matching DNA found in oron the victim with the suspect’s DNA. Historically, many states did not have themoney to process every rape kit that was turned into evidence—a cost of about$500 per kit in private labs—especially when the rapist was a stranger to the victim.Consequently, the kits were not processed for matches with known criminals in theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) DNA database that has been in operationsince 1990.

In recent years, state and federal governments have worked to pass laws to pro-vide funding for standardized rape kits, to process backlogged and future rape kitseven when there is an unknown suspect, and for the training of more SANE nurses.The Debbie Smith Bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney andSenator Maria Cantwell in 2001, followed by the Rape Kit DNA Analysis BacklogElimination Act of 2002, introduced by Representative Jerrold Nadler and SenatorHillary Clinton, and the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2002, introduced bySenator Joseph Biden and Representative Anthony Weiner. In addition, severalstates have changed their statute of limitations for rape prosecution, allowing forlonger statutes when DNA evidence is uncovered. The passing of these laws willhelp victims use standard scientific evidence in rape trials and can help exoneratefalsely imprisoned suspects. See also: DNA Collection and Evidence.

Suggested Reading: National Rape Evidence Project, http://www.rapeevidence.org; DeborahParnis and Janice Du Mont, “Examining the Standardized Application of Rape Kits: AnExploratory Study of Post-Sexual Assault Professional Practices,” Health Care for WomenInternational 23 (2002): 846–853; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, TheDNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2002 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2002).

JACKIE GRUTSCH MCKINNEY

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RAPE LAW. In 1680, Matthew Hale, the British jurist whose description of theEnglish common law became the foundation for many American laws, stated: “Itis true, rape is a most detestable crime, and therefore ought severely and impartiallyto be punished with death; but it must be remembered that it is an accusation easilyto be made and hard to be proved; and harder to be defended by the party accused,though ever so innocent” (Bohmer, 317). Over 300 years later, the ambivalencereflected in Hale’s statement on the law of rape remains a fixture of Americanjurisprudence. A more modern articulation of the two competing goals of rape lawis given by law professor Angela Harris: (1) to protect individuals from noncon-sensual sexual acts and (2) to ensure that accused individuals are not convicted ofcrimes of which they are innocent or crimes that they could not reasonably haveknown they were committing (52).

Susan Brownmiller became one of the first scholars to shatter the silence sur-rounding the history, sociology, and criminal law of rape with the publication ofAgainst Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Brownmiller was the first person toargue that rape was a crime of violence, not passion, when she argued that rape is“nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all menkeep all women in a state of fear” (15). She also gave a detailed history of rapelaw, discussing the crime’s origins in property rights, such that rape initially in-volved a claim by one man against another man for damage to his property. Indeed,the word rape comes from the Latin rapere, which means to steal. In common law(i.e., under traditional law), rape was defined as an act of sexual intercourse un-dertaken by a man with a woman, not his wife, against her will and by force. Sincethe publication of Against Our Will, rape law has undergone a series of reformsthat have resulted in the repeal or modification of earlier statutes in all 50 states.

The first wave of reforms began in the early to mid-1970s. Reformers attackedall aspects of this traditional definition, including the exemption of spouses; thegender-specific nature of the language, which did not allow for male victims; theexclusion of all sexual acts other than penile-vaginal intercourse; and the conditionthat victims be forcefully compelled, known as the “resistance requirement.” Inaddition, activists and scholars sought to remove the various legal obstacles toproving that the rape had occurred—motivated by concerns that the victim, ratherthan the defendant, ended up being put on trial. Requirements of victim corrobo-ration, admission of testimony on the victim’s prior sexual history at trial, rules ofevidence that required the victim to physically resist her/his attacker, and the notionof “fresh complaints” (i.e., the notion that charges of rape made to the police severaldays or weeks after the incident were false on their face) were all attacked.

The political climate was generally favorable to reform proposals, though therewas resistance from defense attorneys concerned with changes infringing upon therights of the accused. The result was a series of compromises in many states re-sulting in the deletion of specific provisions within the reform package or the sub-stitution of a weaker version of a particular change. One example of a provisionfrequently deleted from early reform bills was the elimination of the marital rapeexemption, a change that would not come until the second wave of reform. Whilesome states adopted all the proposed changes through comprehensive reform bills,others made only minor revisions through a series of individual changes over time.

Four of the most common reforms enacted by legislatures have been identified.First, states redefined the crime of rape by adopting a series of graded offenses,rather than one sole crime, which were distinguished by the presence or absence of

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various “aggravating conditions.” Reformers believed that these changes wouldremedy the aforementioned deficiencies of the traditional common-law definition aswell as improving its precision by clearly stating a series of criminal behaviors. Eachone of the graded offenses was described in gender-neutral terms and defined interms of the circumstances surrounding the crime, including: the seriousness of thecrime (penetration versus other sexual contact); how much force was used by theperpetrator; whether and to what extent the victim was injured; the age and inca-pacitation of the survivor; and whether or not a felony in addition to the sexualassault had been committed. In addition, most states eliminated the terms rape andsodomy and instead used terms like sexual assault, sexual battery, or criminal sex-ual conduct. Finally, many statutes redefined the term penetration to encompass abroader spectrum of actions committed by perpetrators. The Michigan statute,which is regarded as a model rape reform law by many scholars and activists,defined sexual penetration as “sexual intercourse, cunnilingus [oral sex performedupon a female], fellatio [oral sex performed upon a male], anal intercourse, or anyother intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body or of any objectinto the genital or anal opening of another person’s body, but emission of semennot required” (Spohn and Horney, 22).

Second, states addressed criticisms of the common-law statutory phrase “by forceand against her will,” which made an individual’s nonconsent a critical componentof the crime. This statutory element led to the development of what has been termedthe “resistance requirement” whereby an individual was required to “resist to theutmost” or at least to demonstrate “such earnest resistance as might be reasonablyexpected under the circumstances” (23). In fact, many resistance requirements werefurther strengthened by state courts that overturned cases in which they believedinsufficient resistance had been mounted. In a case in which the victim had struggledand screamed, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the defendant’s conviction,stating that “there must be the most vehement exercise of every physical means orfaculty within the woman’s power to resist the penetration of her person, and thismust be shown to persist until the offense is consummated” (23).

Both activists and police officers insisted that these requirements actually in-creased the chances that an individual would be severely injured during a sexualassault. Their criticisms were augmented by feminists and legal scholars who statedthat such resistance was not required from victims of any other violent crimes suchas robbery, and furthermore, such inquiries shifted the focus of the trial toward thevictim’s behavior and character rather than the defendant’s criminal actions. Manystates chose to address these criticisms by eliminating resistance by the victim asone of the elements prosecutors had to prove at rape trials. Other states chose tomore specifically define circumstances that satisfied the force requirement such asthe use or display of a weapon or the injuring of a victim. A third approach takenby reformers of the consent standard sought to define the concept of consent itselfmore clearly. In Illinois, the legislators of 1985 chose to define consent as “a freelygiven agreement to the act of sexual penetration or sexual conduct in question”(24).

The third area of reform concerns the corroboration requirement. The corrobo-ration requirement harkens back to the concerns expressed by Lord Hale about theeasiness of levying a false rape accusation out of vengefulness, regret, or due to“mental imbalance,” as well as the difficulty in disproving any such allegation.Despite a lack of empirical evidence concerning the frequency of false accusations

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and/or convictions, many states enacted a corroboration requirement that requiredthat prosecutors present evidence other than the victim’s testimony concerning theessential elements of the case (i.e., the attacker’s identity, penetration, nonconsent).In addition to corroboration or as an alternative, some states required that judgesissue a “cautionary instruction” to juries that was modeled after Hale’s (in)famousstatement. In attacking the corroboration requirement, reformers charged that thelaws were sexually discriminatory (because the word of a woman was viewed asnot being sufficient) and unnecessary (because judges and juries were, “if anything,”biased against rape victims rather than defendants). In addition, critics pointed tothe particular difficulty of obtaining evidence of a crime that usually takes place inprivate and therefore without any other witnesses, stating that reforms would leadto both an increased pool of prosecutable rape cases and an increased convictionrate. The majority of jurisdictions subsequently abolished both the cautionary juryinstructions and the corroboration requirement through either legislation or courtrulings.

Finally, through the enactment of rape shield laws, reformers were able to excludea significant amount of evidence regarding the victim’s prior sexual conduct. Pre-viously, under common law, such evidence had been allowed into court in order toquestion the victim’s credibility and therefore prove that she had in fact consentedto sexual intercourse.

The notion that the victim’s prior sexual conduct was pertinent to whether or not sheconsented was based on the assumptions that chastity was a character trait and that,therefore, an unchaste woman would be more likely to agree to intercourse than awoman without premarital or extramarital experience. Simply stated, the assumptionwas “if she did it once she’d do it again.” (25)

Critics argued that these assumptions were based on outdated stereotypes that pro-vided courts and juries with little or no guidance on the issue of credibility or indetermining what happened on this specific occasion. Such criticisms were wellreceived, and by 1985 almost all of the states and the federal government hadadopted rape shield laws that encompass a range of restrictiveness concerning ad-missibility.

The 1986 Texas statute offers an example of a less restrictive approach wherebyno evidence of sexual conduct was categorically excluded, but rather each individualjudge is instructed to hold a private hearing to determine whether or not the evi-dence’s inflammatory nature is outweighed by its relevance or helpfulness. Michi-gan, on the other hand, completely prohibited the admission of evidence concerninga victim’s prior sexual history as of 1985 with only two narrow exceptions, thougheven the exceptions must first be deemed valuable and relevant by the judge beforethey are admitted. Other jurisdictions attempt to offer more of a balance betweenthe rights of the complainant and the accused; some, like California, distinguishbetween evidence of past sexual history to prove consent, which is inadmissible,and evidence relating to credibility, which is allowed. Reformers hoped that rapeshield laws would ensure that survivors would no longer be subjected to “a secondbrutalization in court” (27).

In a second wave of reform, activists moved beyond the legal hurdles both beforeand during trial, in order to further question the definition of rape itself. In addition,spousal rape statutes that reformers had been forced to abandon during the first

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wave of reform were enacted in most jurisdictions, making the assault of one’sspouse a crime.

Many of the broad effects reformers in the 1970s and 1980s anticipated to ariseout of these changes did not ultimately occur. Rape is still a significantly underre-ported crime, particularly date rape/acquaintance rape, which is taken less seriouslythan stranger rape. Consent standards and force/resistance requirements are stillbeing debated, if not in legislatures, then in courtrooms, prosecutors’ offices, andpolice stations, as well as the public at large. Current legal scholarship has focusedon the evolving definition of consent, attempting to take into account and explainthe different perceptions of the same encounter reported by survivors and defen-dants through nuanced interpretations of the language.

These are some of the most significant changes in American rape law, with anemphasis on the first wave of reforms enacted during the 1970s and 1980s. Thelaw of rape is constantly evolving—yet increasingly activists and scholars are turn-ing to other mediums in order to effect change such as community outreach andeducation with specialized training for those working within the criminal justicesystem. While the statutory construction of the law remains a site of struggle, howthose statutes are interpreted, enforced, and perceived has increasingly become thefocus of both scholarly and activist inquiry. See also: Prosecution; Rape, Definitionsof.

Suggested Reading: Carol Bohmer, “Acquaintance Rape and the Law,” in AcquaintanceRape: The Hidden Crime, ed. Andrea Parrot and Laurie Bechofer (New York: John Wileyand Sons, 1991), 317; Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1975), 15; Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal SystemVictimizes Women Who Say No (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); LeslieFrancis, “Introduction,” in Date Rape: Feminism, Philosophy, and the Law, ed. Leslie Fran-cis (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), viii; Angela P. Harris, “Forc-ible Rape, Date Rape, and Communicative Sexuality: A Legal Perspective,” in Date Rape:Feminism, Philosophy, and the Law, ed. Leslie Francis (University Park: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1996); Cassia Spohn and Julie Horney, Rape Law Reform: A GrassrootsRevolution and Its Impact (New York: Plenum Press, 1992).

STEPHANIE L. SCHMID

RAPE-LYNCH SCENARIO. Nearly 3,000 Americans were lynched from the latenineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The vast majority of these wereAfrican American males who died at the hands of white mobs. The purported“crime” of many of these victims was the rape of or inappropriate sexual conductwith or in the presence of white women. This scenario—an accusation of sexualimpropriety or criminality against a black man, followed by mob violence that oftenended in the brutal murder of the accused rapist—was an all-too-common occur-rence in the late nineteenth-century South, a period often considered the nadir inAmerican race relations.

Accusations of black rape or sexual assault carried great weight in the Southbecause much of the region at this time had become convulsed with fears or anxietyabout black-on-white rape, although there is little evidence to substantiate suchconcerns. Regardless, a perceived misstep or sexual advance by a black man towarda white woman was often offered up as an excuse for mob violence. Many whitecommunities, believing that blacks only responded to such displays of extralegal

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“justice,” simply refused to allow such alleged sexual infractions to proceed throughthe criminal justice system, despite the high rates of execution for black men con-victed of the rape or attempted rape of white women.

Lynching has been variously defined over the years, but the term generally appliesto a variety of extralegal actions by groups of varying sizes in response to a per-ceived violation of law or a breach of custom. Rituals that were sometimes observedin lynching include allowing a victim or the victim’s family member to take the leadin the attack; the mutilation of the alleged attacker; the cooperation of law officialsworking actively, though perhaps covertly, with the mob; welcoming large audi-ences to witness the spectacle of lynching; and finally, the grisly commercializationof lynching that produced picture postcards commemorating lynching or the sellingof body parts as grisly mementoes, a development that coincided with the rise ofconsumer culture in America.

While the ostensible reasons for lynching varied wildly over region and time,according to most white southern contemporaries, the primary motivation for mobaction against a black man was sexual misconduct, broadly defined as rape. Manytypes of behaviors when committed by black men in the presence of white womenhad connotations of sexual aggression that most likely would not have been thecase had the male been white or the female black. Knocking on the door of a whitewoman home alone, for example, might very well be interpreted as a sexually men-acing act. Scaring a white woman or making direct eye contact with a white womancould precipitate a lynch mob. And, of course, word about consensual sex acrossthe color line would frequently energize the white community into taking actionagainst the suspected black offender. Much of the white South believed no “sane”or proper white woman would ever consent to sex with a black man, virtuallyrendering all forms of sex between black men and white women coerced, or rape.

Although statistically sexual assault was not the most frequent reason given formost racially motivated lynchings, lynching apologists, nonetheless, fixated on blackrape as the chief cause of most lynchings, in large measure to justify a heinous andsavage practice to those outside the South. Radical racists invoked the sanctity ofwhite womanhood, falling back on the gendered mores of the Victorian culture, tosanction the racial violence that pervaded much of the South at the turn of thecentury, fully cognizant that economic and political competition, which in realityundergirded much of the fatal white-on-black violence, would carry little currencyoutside the South. Pervasive repulsion at black rape thus transcended regional bor-ders and shored up support outside the South for “extreme” measures like lynching,or at least helped to mute the criticism of lynching.

Southern politicians were especially adept at harnessing rape fears to garner sup-port for lynching. Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia, suffragist, Prohibitionist, andthe first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, unabashedly called for the lynching ofblack rapists, crying that “if it takes lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession. . . then I say lynch a thousand times a week if it becomes necessary.”

Despite claims that the rape of white women was the primary cause of lynching,sexual offenses constituted only one of many reasons for lynching. Critics of lynch-ing, mostly black activists, denounced such claims as constructed merely to maskindiscretions by white women who flouted racial taboos by becoming intimatelyinvolved with black men. Once exposed, such women, rather than risk communityopprobrium or rejection, “cried rape,” prompting antilynching activist Ida B. Wellsto label the charge of black rape “the old thread-bare lie.” She suspected as well

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that other motivations, like political agency and the economic viability of the blackcommunity, which proved threatening to whites, lay at the heart of lynching. Wellswas joined by other African Americans, like Frederick Douglass, John Mitchell, andMary Church Terrell, and by organizations like the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Committee on Interracial Co-operation, in the fight against lynching. One grassroots organization, the Associa-tion of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, headed by white womanJesse Daniel Ames, worked tirelessly for federal legislation to outlaw lynching.

Antilynching activists faced an uphill battle combating popular renderings of rapeand race in the South. The themes in Thomas Dixon’s popular novel, The Clansman(1905), which glorified the birth of the Ku Klux Klan largely by showcasing thesexual threat black men posed to white women of the South after the Civil War,played to a much wider national audience in its celluloid offspring, Birth of aNation (1916). Huge crowds attending the cinematic spectacle expressed revulsionat the rape scenes and became receptive to lynching as a “natural” way to combat“the usual crime” of black-on-white rape. Ironically, in the twentieth century, raceliberals of the South, both black and white, employed literature as a vehicle toprotest the savagery of lynching and in particular to expose as sham the ruse ofblack rape. Mississippi novelist William Faulkner, most notably, turned the tableon white male lynchers whom he suspected of harboring feelings of sexual repres-sion. In Light in August (1932), Joe Christmas is brutally mutilated and lynchedfor the alleged murder of a white woman. The leader of that white mob, PercyGrimm, thus exorcises his own sexual frustrations by lynching Christmas, a manof mixed race, who was demonized for his freer views about sex. Lillian Smith,James Baldwin, and W.E.B. Du Bois, to name just a few authors critical of the rape-lynch scenario, followed suit. See also: Race and Racism; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Vir-ginia, 1880–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993); W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed.,Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South (Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1997); James E. Cutler, Lynch Law: An Investigation into the History of Lynching inthe United States (New York: Longmans, Green, 1905); Philip Dray, At the Hands of PersonsUnknown (New York: Random House, 2002); Stewart E. Tolnay and E.M. Beck, A Festivalof Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882–1930 (Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1992).

DIANE MILLER SOMMERVILLE

RAPE MYTHS. Rape myths are widely held inaccurate beliefs about how and whyrape happens. Myths are either untrue and unfounded ideas misconstrued as facts(victims want to be raped) or partially true yet atypical experiences that get applieduncritically to all sexual assault cases (strangers rape women in dark alleys). Thesemyths are learned through cultural socialization by our family, peers, religious in-struction, schools, media, and community. Rape myths usually include the follow-ing ideas: victims deserve, cause, invite, ask for, or want to be raped; victims whoget raped could have avoided it and therefore are at fault; and victims are sexuallypromiscuous, or they are sexually active with the offender, and thus she/he was awilling partner in a sex act.

Racist, classist, and sexist stereotypes about victims, perpetrators, and violenceplay a key role in the development and maintenance of rape myths. For example,

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one stereotype is that of the black male rapist who attacks white women. This haslittle basis in reality. About 80 percent of sex offenders violate victims within theirsame racial group. The exception to this is Native American women who are almostalways raped by non-Native men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.Because of racist stereotypes that have continued since colonialism and Americanslavery, white women have been socialized to be cautious of black male strangers,and nonwhite women have been largely overlooked as victims of assault.

Sexist stereotypes have made women’s sexuality the focus when it comes to un-derstanding rape. The mythical belief that women who are raped bring it on them-selves makes scrutiny of their sexual activity, as well as their dress and behavior,culturally acceptable. Stereotypical views that women should be sexually availableand pleasing to husbands or lovers perpetuate myths that women cannot be rapedin marriage, in a relationship, or on a date. In this situation, common culturalresponses might be: She knew what she was getting into, she just regretted sex andcalled it rape, and it cannot be rape because it is her duty as a wife to please herhusband.

Furthermore, racist and classist stereotypes interconnect with sexism. Womenwho are viewed as virtuous and moral—usually white, not impoverished, married,heterosexual, and law-abiding—may be accepted as true victims and solicit moresympathy and more justice-seeking than women perceived as promiscuous or im-moral—nonwhite, working-class or poor, rural, unmarried, homeless, sex worker,sexually active, and queer. While these stereotypes fuel rape myths about women,they also shape myths about men by completely invalidating them as victims ofsexual assault.

Rape myths not only produce and maintain ideas about victims and offenders;they shape and consequently narrow our understanding of violence and the wayrape is defined. For example, one commonly held belief is that a rape crime canonly be defined as such if it happens to a “moral and believable” woman who isattacked by a deviant male stranger. This scenario does happen, but using it as astandard obscures the majority of sexual assault experiences and facts of rape.Furthermore, it relies on stereotypical ideas about violence, which often measuresthe level of crime, appropriate legal response, and assessment of victim harm bythe visual signs of physical injury. In reality, most child rape and adult rape do notreflect “obvious” bodily injury. Thus, this myth minimizes the trauma of rape andcontributes to misguided and ineffective legal and societal responses to rape.

Rape myths, and the stereotypes that fuel them, profoundly affect society’s un-derstanding of and response to rape. They increase a survivor’s feelings of blameand shame, discourage them from seeking help and reporting, and can harm theirrecovery; relieve offenders of responsibility and make arrest and prosecution moredifficult; influence the way society, media, and the legal system treat survivors andrespond to rape; allow society to minimize or excuse the prevalence of rape andthe effect it has on us all; and teach all women and men the wrong ideas aboutrape, which in turn falsely informs them about effective rape prevention methodsand assistance services.

Dispelling rape myths and working toward ending rape require reevaluation inlight of the facts of rape. Sexual intercourse without consent is always rape regard-less of the circumstances and characteristics of the victim or offender. It is rapewhether or not a weapon was used, excessive force was used, there are visible signsof violence, or a victim fought back. No one owes sex because they are dating,

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married, “sexually teasing,” prostituting, or previously or currently engaging inother consensual sexual activity. No one deserves or does something to invite rape.Rape is always the responsibility of the offender.

While sexual assault occurrences vary, there are common characteristics obscuredby rape myths. Most adult and child rape survivors know or are acquainted withtheir offender. The majority of rape victims are women and children, but adult menare also sexually assaulted. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, most rapesin the United States occur in or near a victim’s home or an acquaintance’s home,and a rape is just as likely to occur during the day as it is in the evening. Moreover,almost all sexual violence is perpetrated by men within their racial group, andresearch on rapists reveals that most are clinically sane, have sex regularly, holdjobs, and appear as “normal” members of society.

In conclusion, rape myths are prevalent, and many people believe they are trueand factual. They affect individual, cultural, and institutional understanding of andresponses to rape. Thus, dispelling rape myths and exposing the racism and sexismthat fuel them are imperative to ending rape. See also: “Blaming the Victim” Syn-drome; Male Rape; Prostitution; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: Bureau of Justice Statistics, http://www.ajp.usdaj.gov/bjs/pub; AngelaDavis, “Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist,” in Women, Race & Class (NewYork: Random House, 1981), 172–201; Mary P. Koss, “Hidden Rape,” in Rape and SexualAssault, vol. 2, ed. A.W. Burgess (New York: Garland, 1998); Anthony J. Urquiza and BethL. Goodlin-Jones, “Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Victimization with Women of Color,”Violence and Victims 9.3 (1994): 223–232; Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape (NewYork: Harper & Row, 1988).

HEATHER SCHMIDT

RAPE OF LUCRETIA. The Rape of Lucretia is the legendary event that led to theexpulsion of the kings of Rome in 509–510 b.c.e. Many important turning pointsin Rome’s history were marked by either the rape or attempted rape of a woman.For the Romans, rape apparently brought together the two divine origins of thenation—the god of war, Mars, and the goddess of love, Venus—and hence wascritical in furthering the development of the state. Early sources for the story of theRape of Lucretia are the historian Livy, and the poet Ovid, who wrote between theend the the first century b.c.e. and the beginning of the first century c.e. The Rapeof Lucretia has also been the subject of a Shakespeare play and numerous paintings.

The story begins when the Romans attack Ardea, a neighboring city. TarquiniusSuperbus, the Roman king, had launched the assault in order to distract the people,who were unhappy with the king’s program of forced labor. The assault on Ardearapidly turned into a siege. One evening a group of young princes gathers to drinkand pass the time. Collantinus Tarquinius bragged that his wife was more virtuousthan anyone else’s. In order to prove it, the men agree to travel to each other’shouses that very night to see how their wives are spending their time. As they visiteach house, the princes discover the royal wives are engaged in drinking parties justlike their husbands. When they reach the home of Collatinus, however, they findhis wife, Lucretia, and her maids are busy spinning wool, a sign of female virtue.Collatinus wins the contest. But the favorite son of the king, Sextus Tarquinius,becomes inflamed with passion, either because of Lucretia’s beauty, or because hewants to destroy her virtuous reputation. He returns to Collatinus’s house, and

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Lucretia welcomes him as a guest. When the household is asleep, he creeps intoLucretia’s room. At first Tarquinius promises marriage and the crown; then hethreatens Lucretia with his knife. She is willing to die to preserve her chastity, soTarquinius tells her that he will kill her and a slave, arranging the bodies so thathe can claim he caught her in the act of adultery and killed her on behalf of thefamily. Unable to stand this idea, Lucretia allows him to rape her. The next dayshe calls her husband and her father home, instructing them to bring along trust-worthy friends. They arrive, she tells them what Tarquinius has done, and asksthem to swear that they will avenge her. The men try to convince Lucretia that shehas done nothing wrong. She surprises them by crying out that no woman shallhave the opportunity to use Lucretia as an excuse for immoral acts and then stabsherself. As her husband and father look on in horror, Brutus (another member ofthe royal family) pulls the knife from Lucretia’s body and swears that he will avengeher by deposing the king. Lucretia’s body is carried to the Forum, where the peoplerally around Brutus and expel the king. Brutus and Collatinus become the first twoRoman Consuls, and the republic is born.

Scholarly treatments of the rape of Lucretia often focus on the political conse-quences of the act: a political revolution and the founding of the Roman republic.Others focus on the religious and dramatic qualities of the story. When the politicaloutcome is emphasized, the characters of Brutus and Sextus Tarquinius are oftenthe main focus of the analysis, rather than Lucretia. Scholars of ancient religionhave pointed out the ritual nature of the rape and its aftermath, essentially readingLucretia as a sacrificial victim who is killed to purify the state and society. Othershave focused on the dramatic nature of the story. In Livy’s telling, the action is soclose to theater that subsequent dramatists have found it easy to adapt. In anotherinterpretation, the rape is seen as further evidence that the Romans drew on boththe violent and creative aspects of their collective identity, making rape a quintes-sentially Roman way of marking important turning points in the development ofthe polity. Finally, feminist scholars have pointed out the ways in which this storydramatizes the position of Roman women who are treated as symbols and pawnsto be exchanged and violated by men as part of their competition for politicalpower. Although these interpretations vary widely, it is clear that the Romans feltthat rape was central to their own political and cultural origins. See also: Art;Mythology; Rape of the Sabine Women.

Suggested Reading: I. Donaldson, Rapes of Lucretia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).APRIL BULLOCK

RAPE OF NANKING. On December 13, 1937, after six months of intense fightingin the Yangtze Valley, Nanking, the capital of Nationalist China, fell to the Japa-nese. This was a major victory in Japan’s quest to dominate Asia. It was followedby seven weeks of carnage known as the Rape of Nanking. Mass executions slaugh-tered the Chinese Army, 260,000 to 350,000 civilians were killed, and up to 80,000women and men were raped. These atrocities were designed to terrorize the Chinesepeople, demean them, break their will, and allow Japan to easily subjugate thepopulation. The few missionaries in Nanking tried unsuccessfully to protect womenfrom being raped. Though the Rape of Nanking made headlines around the world,the international community did not investigate the rapes until after the war.

Rape has always been a technique of warfare, but according to rape expert Susan

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Brownmiller, only the Pakistani treatment of Bengali women in 1971 compares tothe violence, pain, and humiliation bestowed by Japanese soldiers on the people ofNanking. Under the command of General Iwana Matsui and Prince Asaka Yasu-hiko, soldiers and officers systematically went through the city, raping all women,regardless of their ages. Chinese men were also sodomized or forced to commitnecrophilia or incest in front of laughing troops. The women, raised to prize chas-tity, fiercely resisted the Japanese. Women went into hiding, tried to pass as men,refused to bathe, and threw up or voided on their attackers, but the violence con-tinued. When bored, soldiers gang raped Buddhist nuns, sliced open the vaginas ofyoung girls to assault them more efficiently, impaled women’s vaginas, took por-nographic pictures of their victims, and ripped fetuses out of pregnant women foramusement. Many of these women were then sent to the front lines in other areasof Asia and the Pacific to serve as unpaid sexual slaves for the Japanese military.

A soldier explained the rapists’ attitudes toward Chinese women: “We justthought of her as something like a pig.” When the military police made token effortsto stop the rapes, the soldiers began to kill women to cover the abuse. Victims weredisemboweled, had their breasts cut off, and were nailed to walls. There was nolimit to the capacity for human degradation and sexual perversity.

Many of the women who survived were faced with unwanted pregnancies. Be-cause the Japanese had used rape as a tactic to terrorize and humiliate the Chinesepeople, pregnant women faced the unthinkable consequence of bearing and raisingan enemy’s child. To date, not a single Chinese woman has admitted that her childwas the result of these rapes. Yet Western observers reported mass suicides of preg-nant Chinese women in 1938, and numerous half-Japanese babies were killed atbirth by their scarred mothers.

Historians blame Japanese military culture for the extent of the torture. Youngboys in Japan were trained from an early age for military service. Teachers alsoinstilled an intense hatred of the Chinese and preached of Japan’s racial superiority.Thus, boys were ready to join the army and conquer China. However, they foundthe military life to be arbitrary, cruel, and based on rank. Thus, the soldiers whocame to China were filled with rage and looking for someone “lower” than them-selves on which to take out their frustrations. Chinese women, because of their“inferior” racial and gender status, were ideal targets for the soldiers’ aggression.Military superstition also promoted the sexual abuse of women. Many Japanesesoldiers believed that raping virgins made them more powerful in battle. Othersoldiers wore amulets made from their victims’ pubic hair to protect them frominjury.

As Westerners alerted their home governments of the atrocities taking place inNanking, the Japanese high command stepped in. Rather than punish the soldiers,they created a system of military prostitution based on the sexual slavery of Asianwomen. Those from Nanking were among the first exploited as “comfort women.”Under the puppet rule of Chinese collaborators, the situation in Nanking quieted.The survivors often turned to opium as an escape. Even after the Japanese surrenderin 1945, the people of Nanking continued to suffer lives of silent poverty, shame,and chronic physical and mental pain. Anxious to make alliance with Japan in theCold War era, neither Westerners nor the Chinese government held the Japanesegovernment accountable for the Rape of Nanking. See also: Bosnia-Hergezovina;Nazis; War Crimes; Wartime Rape.

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Suggested Reading: Timothy Brooks, ed., Documents on the Rape of Nanking (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 2000); Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking (New York: Penguin,1997).

MARY LINEHAN

RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN. The Rape of the Sabine Women is part of thelegendary story of the founding of Rome. It is the second in a series of rapes orattempted rapes that mark important turning points in the early history of Rome.The first of these, the rape of Rhea Silvia by the god Mars, produced the legendaryfounder of Rome, Romulus. The ancient sources for the story include Livy’s EarlyHistory of Rome and Ovid’s The Art of Love, both produced at the end of the firstcentury b.c.e.

Shortly after Romulus established the city of Rome (c. 750 b.c.e.), he was facedwith the problem of creating a stable population base. Rome’s citizens consisted ofthe rabble of other towns that had either joined up with Romulus’s army or hadresponded to his call for people for the new town (he granted asylum to all whoresponded). There was a severe shortage of women. Romulus sent envoys to neigh-boring cities asking for the right of intermarriage and hence alliance. They weresent packing by their neighbors who felt that Rome’s power was already too greator that the Roman rabble were simply unfit for intermarriage. When the envoysreturned disappointed, Romulus formulated a plan to abduct women from neigh-boring communities. The Romans invited their neighbors, including the Sabines, tocelebrate a new religious festival in Rome. While the theatricals were under way,the Romans set upon the young women from neighboring cities and abducted andraped them. The women’s relatives fled in confusion. While the other cities attackedRome and were quickly defeated, the Sabines bided their time and waited for somemonths to wage war against Rome to avenge this wrong. In the meantime, Romulusand the Romans apparently won the women to their cause; various sources reportthat they promised legal marriage and a glorious future for their offspring andwhispered words of love. When the war finally comes, the Sabine women standbetween their families of birth and marriage, pleading with both to spare themselvesand their children further exposure to the horrors of war between relatives.

Scholarly interpretations of the Rape of the Sabine Women stress different aspectsof the story. The Rape of the Sabines has been used to explain the origins of theRoman marriage ceremony. Many of the specific customs associated with Romanmarriage can be found in the story of the Sabines. Carrying the bride across thethreshold, for example, may commemorate these first, forced marriages. But formost scholars, the central meaning of the rape is political. Those who rely on theRoman historian Livy tend to view the rape as simply the easiest and most practicalsolution to the problem of building a stable population for the newly founded city.These interpretations focus primarily on the latter intervention of the Sabine womenon the battlefield and its happy consequences for the Romans. Other interpretationsfocus on the Roman poet Ovid’s account of the rape, which gives more narrativeattention to the terror and suffering of the women and the lustfulness of the Ro-mans. In some interpretations, Ovid’s narration of the fear and pain of the victimsof the rape is viewed as evidence of a protofeminist interest in the consequences ofrape for its victims and in the role of rape in perpetuating patriarchy. For otherscholars, however, Ovid’s attention to the sufferings of the victims is a result of an

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inability to separate the violence and sexuality that are both part of rape. In thisinterpretation, political and sexual violence are inescapably linked; indeed, there isno clear demarcation between them. Whichever of these interpretations is favored,it is clear that the Rape of the Sabines was one of the most important stories theRomans told about themselves and their community, which was founded on loveand war, passion and violence. See also: Abduction (Kidnapping); Art; Mythology;Rape of Lucretia; Theater.

Suggested Reading: Mary Beard, “The Erotics of Rape: Livy, Ovid, and the SabineWomen,” in Female Networks and the Public Sphere in Roman Society, ed. P. Setala andL. Savunen (Rome: Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae XXII, 1999); Susan Deacy and KarenF. Pierce, eds., Rape in Antiquity: Sexual Violence in the Greek and Roman Worlds (London:Duckworth, 1997).

APRIL BULLOCK

RAPE PREVENTION. Traditionally, rape prevention knowledge has largely beena set of well-intentioned but misled ideas passed word of mouth by our peers,families, schools, religious institutions, and communities. The focus has historicallybeen on female victims of rape and the ways in which women should avoid beingassaulted. The methods were based on what is now considered victim control, con-trolling women’s behavior to prevent a potential assault. New ideas about raperevealed that this restricted the freedom of women, not the freedom of rapists.Furthermore, it was argued that the traditional avoidance techniques—do not goout at night, dress conservatively, walk in groups—were not effective, especially inlight of facts that show most victims are assaulted by someone they know in theirown home or the home of an acquaintance. Thus, traditional rape prevention in-formation was based on rape myths and focused avoidance methods on women’sbehavior in stereotypical stranger rape scenarios.

Rape prevention, as a philosophy as well as a set of responses to rape, emergedfrom the women’s movement and antiviolence movement beginning in the 1960s.The analysis came out of women’s personal and collective experiences of violenceand sexism. In informal discussions and consciousness-raising groups, women be-came aware of shared experiences. This shifted the understanding of rape frombeing an individual problem to a societal and cultural one. It further challenged theidea that rape was an isolated event that happened at random with infrequence,exposing the fact that rape was, and is, frequent, usually planned, and a culturallyembedded behavior. Furthermore, violence, including sexual assault, came to beviewed as connected to all forms of oppression and the consequential injustices.

This analysis of rape and violence has changed and influenced our fundamentalcultural understanding of all violence. One of the most important contributions tothis changed perception was the development of a feminist redefinition of rape.Feminists argued that rape was motivated by the desire for power and control, notsex. Additionally, feminists pointed out that the prevalence of rape in our societywas fueled and maintained by the subordination of women. Challenging the ideathat rape is an act motivated by the attainment of sex has enabled the antiviolencemovement to embrace men who have been victims of rape and other types of vio-lence. It has also opened up space for understanding hate-motivated crimes relatedto race, religion, sexuality, and physical ability. Further, understanding rape as adesire for power and control has shifted responsibility from victims to offenders.

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A change in the way rape and other forms of violence were analyzed called fora new understanding and response to rape. Therefore, rape prevention strategieswere developed to address the range of cultural issues contributing to sexual assault.For example, a systemic strategy for ending rape may require ending power imbal-ances resulting from oppression and inequality. This may include addressing pov-erty, improving institutional education, and ending oppression related to race,gender/sex, ethnicity, heterosexuality, physical ability, and appearance. Rapeprevention strategies also include direct education and empowerment of individuals.This may incorporate rape education programs that inform women and men aboutthe realities and myths of sexual assault. It may include information on effectivestrategies for risk reduction and rape avoidance such as assertiveness, confronta-tional skills, and self-defense options.

Rape prevention programs often work on a broad scale, educating individualsand communities, as well as working with law enforcement, hospitals, and rapecrisis centers. Programs may provide or offer referrals for rape counseling, victimadvocacy, and crisis intervention. Education and prevention programs also striveto make survivors and offenders aware of the services available. Thus, rape pre-vention programs can educate about and prevent rape, as well as provide servicesfor survivors and their friends and family.

Although there are rape prevention services established in many communities anduniversities, there are still communities, especially nonmetropolitan or rural areas,without rape crisis centers or specially trained hospital staff. Most universities andlaw enforcement agencies remain ill prepared to handle date rape/acquaintance rapecomplaints because of the prevalence and complexity of the cases. Further, someuniversities lack specific penalties for sexual assault, prosecute under the studentconduct code, and do not ensure confidentiality for the victim.

Even with these challenges, rape prevention information and services have be-come successfully widespread. People have a better awareness and understandingof sexual assault. Popular magazines and television shows have featured variousaspects of rape and recovery to a diverse audience. Rape education programs arebeing offered in classrooms, churches, and at community awareness events. Seekingout crisis intervention and counseling is becoming more acceptable. Several men’sgroups have been established to work toward stopping rape. More information isavailable to rape survivors previously not served well—men, disabled and mentallyimpaired individuals, people of color, and queer and transgendered individuals. Self-defense is making headway as an effective tool to avoid assault. Since the 1980s,programs for women and children have increased, and multiple training optionshave become available. Lastly, with the 1994 creation of the Rape, Abuse & IncestNational Network (RAINN), the National Sexual Assault Hotline, access to infor-mation is quicker and better disseminated across diverse groups. The national 24-hour rape hotline for men and women allows them to get referral information fortheir local rape crisis centers and counselors. These efforts have made significantstrides in the goals of rape prevention—improving rape education, awareness,knowledge of self-defense options, and services—combining to make stopping rapea greater possibility. See also: Campus Rape.

Suggested Reading: Pauline Bart and Patricia O’Brien, Stopping Rape: Successful SurvivalStrategies (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985); Martha McCaughey, Real Knockouts: ThePhysical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense (New York: New York University Press, 1997);

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Andrea Parrot, Acquaintance Rape and Sexual Assault: A Prevention Manual (Holmes Beach,FL: Learning Publication, 1991); Nadia Telsey, Self-defense from the Inside Out: A Women’sWorkbook for Developing Self-esteem and Assertiveness Skills for Safety (Eugene, OR: Pub-lished by the author, n.d.).

HEATHER SCHMIDT

RAPE SHIELD LAWS. Beginning in the 1970s, several states within the UnitedStates began passing “rape shield laws.” These laws protect rape victims from publicscrutiny by prohibiting the media from broadcasting or publishing their names andprotect them in court by preventing their previous sexual histories from being re-vealed. Before the laws were enacted, the sexual history of a victim could be broughtbefore the court and used to defend the rapist. If the defense showed that thewoman had sexual relations with the man prior to the rape, many judges and juriestook that to mean that the woman was “asking to be raped.” Rape shield lawsallow rape victims to be treated fairly in the court system instead of putting themon trial.

Rape shield laws have been open to intense scrutiny, and some are being chal-lenged. Critics point out that the language of many of the laws is extreme. Forexample, the Massachusetts law states, “Evidence of the reputation of a victim’ssexual conduct shall not be admissible in any investigation or proceeding before agrand jury or any court of the commonwealth.” Numerous constitutional lawyershave pointed out that the rape shield laws may, in some cases, violate the consti-tutional rights of the accused. The Sixth Amendment clearly states the rights of theaccused in a trial. If the accused has evidence in his defense, it may not be admissibleto the court if the rape shield laws forbid it. It is almost universally agreed thatrape shield laws have done more good than harm, but their validity is still beingtested in the legal system. See also: Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn; Mich-igan v. Lucas; Rape Law; Rules of Evidence; Secondary Rape.

Suggested Reading: General Laws of Massachusetts, http://www.state.ma.us/legis/laws/mgl/233-21B.htm. “J. Tanford & A. Bocchino, Rape Victim Shield Laws and the SixthAmendment,” http://www.law.harvard.edu/publications/evidenceiii/articles/tanford.htm; Ca-thy Young, “Excluded Evidence: The Dark Side of Rape Shield Laws,” Reason.com (Feb-ruary 2002), http://reason.com/0202/co.cy.excluded.shtml.

ARTHUR HOLST

RAPE STATISTICS. Rape statistics are gathered to understand, respond to, andprevent rape. Statistics provide information about rape victims, offenders, circum-stances of the crime, reporting, victims’ experiences and feelings, recovery, effect-iveness of self-defense and preventative measures, prosecution, and conviction. Theyhave been used to dispel rape myths as well as sexist and racist stereotypes byconfirming what we know about rape and how victims and survivors experiencerape. Statistics are an important tool for rape prevention education because theyraise awareness about rape and about the need for changes in societal responses torape.

Some of the main and important rape statistics include the following: An esti-mated 12.1 million women have been raped at least once in their lifetime, and 39percent of them experienced more than one rape; over 80 percent of victims areassaulted by someone they know or are newly acquainted with; the Women’s Safety

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Project, based on in-depth face-to-face interviews with 420 women, indicated that97.6 percent of women reported they had experienced some form of sexual viola-tion, and extrapolating from their findings, they reported that more than 1 in 3women are raped in adulthood, the 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 9percent of all rape happens to men; the Center for Disease Control reported thatof those participants in their national telephone survey, 84 percent of rape victimsdid not report their offense to the police; with the exception of Native Americanrape victims, the 1994 Bureau of Justice Statistics reports 80 to 90 percent of allrape cases involve people of the same race, and they also report that most sexualassault occurs in or near the victim’s home or the home of someone they know;and 98 percent of all rape victims will never see their attacker caught, tried, andimprisoned. Almost half of all convicted rapists are sentenced to less than one yearbehind bars.

There are both institutional and individual barriers contributing to underreport-ing and inaccurate rape statistics. Institutionally, there is deliberate underreportingby law enforcement, universities, and other institutions like religious entities toprotect their reputation or to avoid the extra work and time required to deal withcases; the classifying of sexual assault is sometimes done inaccurately because abelief in rape myths dismisses the assault as a crime or because the crime categoriesin the classification system do not allow for accurate or detailed reporting; theFederal Bureau of Investigation cannot adequately monitor reporting accuracy; andmost rape victims do not report to law enforcement agencies.

The reasons for not reporting sexual assault are numerous and complicated. Mis-led beliefs about rape and violence influence a rape victim’s understanding of theirexperience and his/her choice to report and/or seek medical attention and crisisservices. For example, what an individual believes constitutes rape, which is oftenminimized if she/he knew the offender and if there are not visible signs of injury,and whether she/he believes that what happened is a crime worth reporting arecentral to deciding whether to report the crime. This is tied to issues of being arape victim: the fear of being blamed, the fear of not being believed, and the stigmaattached to being raped. Add to this the fears and anxieties related to characteristicsof and/or the relationship of the victim or offender—being gay, being a male sur-vivor, being raped by a husband or lover, being raped by someone who shares thesame racial or cultural community, especially oppressed groups, being raped by aprominent person, and being victimized in a small or close-knit town with littleprivacy or lack of resources (especially if the victim is not out as gay, is a malesurvivor, or belonging to an oppressed group).

Even with underreporting and inaccuracies, both of which the U.S. Bureau ofJustice Statistics acknowledges as problems, statistics continue to be gatheredthrough the national crime incident reporting system established in the 1970s.Alongside this local and state crime reporting system, researchers have been con-ducting surveys and gathering data to document rape. One of the keys to theirsuccess has been anonymous self-reporting whereby individuals have the opportu-nity to report sexual violence without the same level of inhibitions previously men-tioned.

When considering the accuracy of rape statistics, it is important to consider thatmost rape cases are not reported or reflected in reports. Look for consistency amongresearch statistics. Multiyear trends are usually more reliable than single year. Con-sider the methodology, the size of the sample, the characteristics of the sample (race,

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age, sex, sexuality, and socioeconomic class, for example), and any political biasinfluencing a statistical gathering organization. See also: Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Bureau of Justice Statistics, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub; Bureauof Justice Statistics, Violence against Women (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,1994); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/rape.htm; Mark Fazlollah, “Experts Question Accuracy of New Rape Statistics,” Women’sEnews, http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/587; Lawrence A. Greenfield, SexOffenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault (Washington,DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1997); The National Women’sStudy, Rape in America: A Report to the Nation (Arlington, VA: National Center for Victimsof Crime, 1992); Melanie Randall and Lori Haskell, “Sexual Violence in Women’s Lives:Findings from the Women’s Safety Project, a Community Based Survey,” Violence againstWomen 1.1 (1995): 6–31; Senate Judiciary Committee, “The Response to Rape,” 1993;Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape (New York: Harper & Row, 1988).

HEATHER SCHMIDT

RAPE TRAUMA SYNDROME. “Rape trauma syndrome” (RTS)—first delineatedby Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom in their now-classic 1974article of the same name and elaborated in numerous publications thereafter—is aterm used to describe the stress response pattern commonly exhibited by victims inthe aftermath of rape or attempted rape. Before the advent of second-wave femi-nism, psychological investigations of sexual violence were overwhelmingly preoc-cupied with the character of the perpetrator, the victim’s experience being largelyignored. Redirecting scholarly attention to the problem of female victimization,Burgess and Holmstrom were instrumental in facilitating the remediation of thatneglect.

Rape trauma syndrome, as originally conceived, involved two distinct stages—acute and long term—both composed of diverse psychological, somatic, cognitive,and behavioral elements. Beginning immediately after the assault and persisting fordays to weeks thereafter, the acute phase encompasses both the initial impact ofthe rape, which may be communicated through an expressive or guarded emotionalstyle, along with a series of related symptoms (i.e., feelings of fear, anger, guilt, andhumiliation; sleep and appetite disturbances; intrusive imagery; and diverse somaticcomplaints) reflective of the extreme disruption that rape engenders. Victims nextenter a period of reorganization that may extend from weeks to years during whichthey struggle to come to terms with the assault and make whatever practical ad-justments are required to enhance their daily functioning, such as changing theirtelephone number or residence and seeking sustained support from family andfriends. This phase is distinguished by persistent dreams and nightmares, trauma-togenic fears and phobias, and difficulties in personal relationships, all grounded inthe circumstances of the rape. There is significant variation in the precise nature,intensity, and duration of symptoms, depending in part on such factors as educa-tion, culture, personality, and the violence of the attack; in whatever combinationthey are manifest, however, these effects provide persuasive evidence of the pro-found impact of rape upon its many victims.

Researchers have since modified a number of the ideas and assumptions embed-ded in Burgess and Holmstrom’s typology. For example, some have reconceptual-ized RTS as a three- rather than a two-stage process. On a more substantive level,subsequent studies have sought to address the deficiencies of the original sample,

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for instance, broadening its parameters to take account of date rape/acquaintancerape, which is today recognized as the most prevalent form of sexual assault in theUnited States. In addition, whereas early work in the field dealt exclusively withfemale victims, for whom sexual assault was then, as it is now, a notoriously com-monplace ordeal, it has since been applied to raped males, who have been foundto evidence strikingly similar symptomatologies. As a result of these changes, RTSis today a more nuanced and sophisticated diagnostic instrument, cognizant of dis-tinctions in types of rape, the experience of victimization, and the range of potentialtherapeutic approaches available for improving a victim’s postassault functioning.Yet it is by no means immune to criticism. Especially compelling is the claim thatRTS effectively pathologizes what are in fact entirely normal responses to rape, inthe process removing the crime from the broader social and political context inwhich it continues to thrive. Questions have also been raised concerning the syn-drome’s general applicability, developed as it was from a sample of victims whoreported their rapes, when the vast majority does not. Likewise, the exclusion ofinstitutionalized women from sampling designs remains problematic, given the ex-traordinarily high rates of past sexual abuse observed within that population.

Professional perceptions of the utility of the rape trauma syndrome paradigmhave also shifted over time. It continues to be widely utilized within the fields ofnursing and law enforcement, while its stature among physicians and psychologistshas diminished. Indicatively, RTS does not appear as an independent diagnosticcategory in the current edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnosticand Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (popularly known as “DSM-IV”),which instead considers rape one of numerous factors that may incite posttraumaticstress disorder (PTSD). Although there is some disagreement as to whether RTSshould be construed as an independent entity or a form of PTSD, the latter viewnow predominates. Indeed, rape victims constitute the single largest group to whomthat diagnosis is applied. A parallel process of debate and refinement has occurredwithin law. While there is no national consensus regarding the admissibility ofexpert and lay testimony on RTS, most states that have decided the question agreethat the likelihood of prejudice against the defendant (or, less often, the allegedvictim) is so great that it may not be employed to show whether or not a rape hasoccurred. However, such testimony is widely permitted for other purposes, mostnotably to rebut a defense of consent or fabrication and to elucidate aspects of avictim’s postassault behavior that may appear counterintuitive to jurors. Rape lawreform notwithstanding, the behavior of the complainant continues to be subjectedto intense scrutiny, routinely exceeding that applied to the defendant, to whomcomparable diagnostic labels are seldom applied.

The identification of rape trauma syndrome is generally seen as marking an im-portant advance in the recognition of rape’s manifold harms. Since the 1970s, avast body of literature—much of it undertaken from a feminist standpoint—hasbeen generated on the nature of victimization, the process of recovery, and individ-ual treatment modalities. Although RTS has been largely superseded by the PTSDdiagnosis, many of its central findings have endured. The proliferation of studiesof rape victimology and the crucial insights they have generated have made a vitalcontribution to ongoing efforts to combat sexual violence, raising professional andpublic awareness of the prevalence of rape and its often devastating consequences.See also: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID); Male Rape.

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Suggested Reading: Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, “Rape TraumaSyndrome,” American Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1974): 981–986; Deryck Calderwood,“The Male Rape Victim,” Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 21 (1987): 53–55; PatriciaA. Frazier and Eugene Borgida, “Rape Trauma Syndrome: A Review of Case Law and Psy-chological Research,” Law and Human Behavior 16 (1992): 293–311; Susan Stefan, “TheProtection Racket: Rape Trauma Syndrome, Psychiatric Labeling, and Law,” NorthwesternUniversity Law Review (1994): 1271–1345.

LISA CARDYN

RAPE TRIALS. During the 1990s a number of highly publicized rape trials andsex scandals catapulted the social problem of rape into public consciousness. TheWilliam Kennedy Smith, Mike Tyson, and Marv Albert rape trials, the ClarenceThomas–Anita Hill sexual harassment case, and the President Bill Clinton–MonicaLewinsky affair drew attention to the complexity of sexual issues and the deep-seated ambiguity of interpreting sexual assault. Although rape trials represent onlyone component in the study of violence against women, the public drama of thetrial and the highly political and emotionally charged issues implicated in it providea novel empirical forum for exploring our cultural practices and the role of thelegal institution in society.

The rape trial has been seen to be the centerpiece of feminist theoretical andapplied policy interest. Theoretically, rape trials represent a context for understand-ing male domination and oppression not only in the legal system but also in societymore generally. In terms of criminal justice policy, such trials stimulated a massivelegal reform movement to (1) increase reporting, prosecution, and conviction ofrape; (2) improve the harrowing degradation ceremony of the victim during trial;and (3) expand public awareness of sexual assault and alter prejudicial stereotypesof rape, rapists, and victims.

In the late 1960s and 1970s feminist researchers demonstrated that the law wasnot neutral, objective, or rational but ideologically grounded in gender-specific prac-tices. The rape trial was the most public and symbolic manifestation of male dom-ination in law and society. According to feminist theorists like CatharineMacKinnon (1987), law as practiced in the rape trial was interpreted in male terms,so that if a woman knew the man, was out on a date with him, dressed provoca-tively, failed to resist to the utmost, was promiscuous and so on, then she couldnot have been legally assaulted. And legal scholar Susan Estrich noted in her 1987book Real Rape that in contrast to real rape, in which a stranger jumps out of thebushes, the law failed to protect victims of simple rape (e.g., dates, acquaintances).If the victim’s complaint reached the courtroom, then her sexual history and otherhighly prejudicial and irrelevant extralegal facts could enter the trial. At trial, thevictim would be raped a second time, as the defense attorney attempted to trans-form the victim’s experience into routine consensual sex. Thus rape was a discrim-inatory and criminal practice, keeping women in their place, restricting theirfreedom of movement and sexual autonomy, instilling a chronic and unsettling fear,and depriving them of their rights; and if physical coercion was not enough, therape trial functioned as the default option: the legal machinery for legitimatingsexual assault and reproducing male domination. Empirical studies of the rape trialillustrate in concrete and moment-by-moment detail precisely how domination op-erates, how interpretations of sexual violence are constituted, and how we performour sexually gendered identities. That is, such trials have been seen to constitute a

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vivid and normative representation of how our gender roles should function insociety.

This theoretical interest worked in concert with the applied agenda of transform-ing how the legal system handled rape cases. Responding to the systemic bias inthe legal system, proponents of rape reform targeted the rape trial as both thevehicle and object of massive policy change because of its role in legitimating sexualviolence. Beginning in the early 1970s feminist scholars, activists, and lawyers (oftenin conjunction with more conservative law-and-order politicians) successfully lob-bied for statutory reforms in the adjudication of rape cases, so that by the 1990smost of the 50 states in the United States as well as the federal government hadimplemented sweeping trial reforms. New statutes included the following: a gender-neutral degree structure to reflect the seriousness of the assault (first-degree or ag-gravated sexual assault included the use of a weapon and violence, whereassecond-degree occurred without the use of a weapon, etc.); removal of the corrob-oration requirement, which placed an undue burden of proof on the prosecution;less focus on the victim’s resistance than on the amount of force or threat of forceemployed by the assailant; and most important, rape shield evidentiary rules thatprohibited introduction of the victim’s sexual history during trial, unsavory andirrelevant details that not only humiliated the victim on the stand but also had achilling effect on instrumental outcomes of reporting, prosecution, and conviction.In addition to instrumental changes, rape reformers anticipated significant changesin cultural stereotypes about rape—for example, the rapist as primarily a strangermyth.

Although reformers were optimistic about the instrumental outcome of reform,recent criminal justice evaluation questioned whether reform achieved the intendedresults. The most comprehensive study to date (Spohn and Horney) found thatanticipated outcomes post reform failed to materialize, though perhaps some sym-bolic change occurred in the public’s attitude toward rape crimes. Susan Estrichalso noted that proposed reforms were of little help to victims of simple rapes, themajority of cases, which involve men the victim knows, dates, meets at a bar, andso on, because these cases still revolve around issues of consent and moral-sexualcharacter. Reformers and evaluators provided a number of reasons for lack of suc-cess: the courtroom work group, which may decide to admit sexual history evi-dence; traditional attitudes of jurors; and the prosecuting attorney’s office, whichoperates with a “downstream” orientation to convictability and may thus declineto prosecute a case with only slim prospects of gaining a conviction trial.

A major problem with legal, criminological, and feminist research on the imple-mentation and evaluation of reform was a neglect of what the adversary processlooked like. Instead of looking at the nitty-gritty details of trial processes or thelaw in action, lawyers and rape reformers felt they could understand rape trials andbase reforms on abstract legal theorizing or the law on the books. For example,Vivian Berger’s highly influential 1977 article on the rape trial noted that rapevictims were treated differently than victims of other crimes, but rather than provethis empirically, she used a hypothetical illustration of a male robbery victim beingblamed on cross-examination for his complicity in the robbery, a fictitious exampledesigned to highlight the absurdity of blaming rape victims for their assault at trial.

Recent research has gone beyond philosophical theorizing to study the details ofactual rape trials. If we think about how a woman’s experience of violation isdisqualified and made to look like consensual sex, one aspect of the trial becomes

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transparently relevant. Rape trials are not about truth or falsity but winning andlosing, and that, in turn, depends on which side can best wield language as a per-suasive tool of power. It has been noted that “our law is a law of words” (Tiersma,1); and this is especially so in the he-said-she-said type of rape trial. Evidence,inconsistency, credibility, moral character, sexual history, force, consent, and co-ercion are produced and interpreted through courtroom language. And courtroomlanguage in the rape trial, like other contexts, is a difficult object to harness orcontrol. Rather than being a neutral tool for representing reality, language shapes,constitutes, and mediates legal reality at every turn in the trial. Facts are alwaysconstructed through this creative, inferential, and moral medium of culture. Forexample, in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, defense attorney Roy Blackreferred to the victim’s former boyfriend as “Your daughter’s father.” Through sucha simple depiction of kinship relations, Black legally circumvented rape shield stat-utes to offer an allusive reference about the victim’s sexual history: that she had achild out-of-wedlock. In the rape trial, sexual history and damaging character in-ferences are routinely produced through ordinary characterizations like the above.Defense attorneys and defendants employ the same ordinary use of language tomake the victim’s experience look like consensual sex in the courtroom.

Recognizing this crucial role of language in the rape trial, a number of sociolin-guists and legal scholars have begun to study how language constructs our sexualidentities, molds evidence and our interpretation of facts, and circulates ideas aboutsexual violence. Researchers have also considered the role of language in the im-plementation and evaluation of legal change in the trial, grounding their proposalsin the empirical details of language and ideology—the law in action. A number ofspecific—yet quite controversial—proposals have been put forth for modifying theuse of language in the rape trial, such as the use of an intermediary who wouldtranslate the defense attorney’s questions to the victim into less abusive forms. Inthe William Kennedy Smith rape trial, it was found that rape shield constrains thedefense attorney from introducing explicit sexual history information but not themore typical subtle forms. It was noted that reforms may have little impact due toa combination of the adversary culture of winning at all costs and the microlin-guistic power of language in constituting legal reality.

Future research needs to calibrate (if any and to what extent) the linguistic andideological differences among rape trials, other criminal cases, and even civil liti-gation, perhaps starting from the assumption of similarity and then moving on todocument differences empirically and systematically rather than anecdotally or hy-pothetically (or basing them on advocacy claims). Such an approach would allowresearchers to suspend presuppositions about the gender specificity of the rape trialand include other variables, including the systemic features of the adversary systemand its role in the revictimization process. This would also permit comparison withother types of offender-victim categories, such as female-female or male-male. Thechallenge is to consider what linguistic legal reforms, if any, are possible to makethe rape trial fair for both victims and defendants. See also: Celebrity Rapists; RapeShield Laws.

Suggested Reading: Vivian Berger, “Man’s Trial, Woman’s Tribulation: Rape Cases in theCourtroom,” Columbia Law Review 77 (1977): 1–103; Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the PublicAgenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press,2000); David Brereton, “How Different Are Rape Trials?” British Journal of Criminology

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37 (1977): 242–261; Susan Ehrlich, Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent (NewYork: Routledge, 2001); Susan Estrich, “Palm Beach Stories,” Law and Philosophy 11(1992): 5–33; Susan Estrich, Real Rape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); LisaFrohmann, “Discrediting Victim’s Allegations of Sexual Assault,” Social Problems 38 (1991):213–226; Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1987); Gregory Matoesian, Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the Wil-liam Kennedy Smith Rape Trial (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Gregory Ma-toesian, Reproducing Rape: Domination through Talk in the Courtroom (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1993); Cassia Spohn and Julie Horney, Rape Law Reform: AGrassroots Revolution and Its Impact (New York: Plenum Press, 1992); Andrew Taslitz,Rape and the Culture of the Courtroom (New York: New York University Press, 1999);Peter Tiersma, Legal Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

GREGORY M. MATOESIAN

RAPISTS. See Celebrity Rapists; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists; Sex Offenders;Sexual Predators.

REAL RAPE. Real Rape is the title of a widely debated and highly influential book,authored by legal scholar Susan Estrich, subtitled “How the Legal System VictimizesWomen Who Say No,” and published by Harvard University Press in 1987. Trig-gered in part by Estrich’s own experience of having been raped by a stranger in1974, the study calls for a new understanding of rape. For too long, the authorinsists, rape has been recognized only when the perpetrator was unknown to thevictim and extrinsic violence or multiple assailants were involved. Both legal insti-tutions and rape victims therefore need to acknowledge that so-called simple (ac-quaintance) rape is as real a rape as is aggravated or stranger rape. In more than90 percent of all rapes, perpetrator and victim are acquainted with each other priorto the assault. However, due to misconceived racialized notions of male and femalesexuality, legal institutions have tended to distrust certain victims in such cases,forcing them to prove that their own behavior did not provoke the assault.

Estrich not only shows that cases of simple rape equal conquests of credibility inboth common and modern law approaches; she also foregrounds that despite majorreforms of American and Canadian rape law in the 1970s the so-called force doc-trine remains an efficient means to screen out simple rapes and to blame victimsfor their own violation. Aiming at redefinitions of “consent,” “force,” and “coer-cion,” Estrich’s argument insists on reading rape cases in new ways. Employing theterm real rape in “an argument for change” (7), her study contributed considerablyto victims’ sense of their own violation, to the rise of the term date rape, to thecomprehensive feminist conception of rape, and to a broad awareness of the con-tinuum of sexual violence against women and men. See also: Date/AcquaintanceRape.

Suggested Reading: Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes WomenWho Say No (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); Andrea Parrot and LaurieBechhofer, eds., Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime (New York: Wiley, 1991).

SABINE SIELKE

RELIGION. Major world religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bud-dhism, and Hinduism, have functioned as societal forces that contribute to rape-

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prone discourse and behavior. They have neither clearly nor persistently condemnedrape practices and theories. One reason for this age-old problem relates to andro-centric views on women and sexuality. Androcentrism has made religious author-ities and laypeople question a victim-survivor’s rather than a rapist’s sexual andreligious integrity. Sacred texts, religious doctrines, rituals, and laws have silencedraped women, children, and even men and made it possible to discard charges ofrape.

Yet with the emergence of the global feminist movement in the twentieth centuryfeminist scholars began exposing the rape tolerance of many religious traditions.Often personally committed to the religion under consideration, they critique rape-prone religious discourse and offer alternative religious theories and practices. Todate, feminist theologians and scholars have primarily focused on Christian andJewish traditions; research on other religions is in the early stages. Some of thepositions on rape surfacing from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hin-duism are discussed here.

Jewish literature has included discussions on rape, perhaps because the HebrewBible contains many rape texts. Among the most horrific stories is the gang rapeof a woman called “a concubine” who dies after the nightlong raping and is sub-sequently cut into twelve pieces by her cowardly husband (Judges 19). Anotherprominent story describes the rape of Princess Tamar, who is sexually assaulted byher half brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13). Rape laws appear in Deuteronomy 22:22–29. Postbiblical literature also refers to rape. For instance, in Ketubot 39a–b and51b of the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis acknowledged the pain of a rapedwoman and prohibited marital rape. Also the medieval rabbi Maimonides recog-nized the innocence of a woman forced into sexual intercourse (Biale, 239–255).Still, rabbinical discourse did not abandon the idea of rape as a marital rather thana criminal matter, and so they did not prescribe criminal punishment for the rapist.Instead rabbinical texts focused on the raped woman who, however, was givensubstantial decision-making power (Hauptman, 77–97).

Christian theologians did not make rape an explicit topic in most of their trea-tises. Hardly ever were biblical rape texts included in the lectionary, the prescribedselection of biblical texts read during Christian worship services. Consequently,even today many Christians remain unaware of biblical rape prose and poetry. Still,some theologians articulated their views. One of the earliest is the patristic writerJerome (347–420 c.e.). Although Jerome was generally opposed to suicide, he ad-vised women to commit suicide after rape because “[he] [Christ] has no power tocrown one who has been corrupted” (Jerome, 138). Another patristic theologian,Augustine (354–430 c.e.), contested Jerome’s position dominant in the RomanEmpire. In his work The City of God, Augustine prohibited suicide after rape be-cause in his view rape was ultimately for a woman’s own good. It helped her todeepen her faith and to purify her soul.

In later centuries, some Christian mystics relied on rape metaphors to describetheir union with God. The fourteenth-century mystic St. Teresa of Avila felt over-whelmed by divine shafts of love. The seventeenth-century poet-mystic John Donnepictured himself as being overshadowed by the divine presence. He wrote: “Battermy heart, three-person’d God . . . you ravish [i.e., rape] me” (Cooper-White, 89).Mostly, however, Christian theologians did not concern themselves with rape. En-countering the issue, for instance, in biblical texts, it has been noted that theyusually redefined rape as “seduction” or “love.”

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Islam dealt with rape mostly in legal practice. In Pakistan the so-called HududOrdinance has regulated rape since 1979. Accordingly, rape is included as an “of-fense of Zina” (by force), which criminalizes extramarital sexual relations. One ofthe stipulations is that four Muslim adult men must have witnessed the sexualtransgression. Predictably, raped Muslim women rarely come forward with chargesof rape. Not only do they face death threats from male family members who wantto restore the family honor, raped women might also receive the death penalty bythe state if they cannot prove their innocence. So-called honor killings are a con-siderable problem in Muslim countries, even in those not ruled by Islamic law.Muslim feminists criticize the discriminatory legal practice. They maintain that theQur’an, the Islamic holy book, does not support the current interpretation of Is-lamic jurisprudence or the male honor system. To them, zina does not includenonconsensual sex or rape. Moreover, the Qur’an charges not to doubt the char-acter of a woman.

Another religious tradition, Buddhism, tells stories of nuns who struggle withmale sexual force. One of them is the beautiful Subha. Attacked, Subha tries toinstruct the man about the delusions of physical pleasure and beauty. When he doesnot let her go, she mutilates herself in front of him by pulling out one of her eyes.Immediately the rapist’s “passion disappeared,” and he exclaims: “I wish you well,chaste lady; this sort of thing won’t happen again” (Wilson, 168). Perhaps the storyreinforces the stereotype that beautiful women are more endangered by rape thanother women. Some interpreters maintain that in this story the woman turns froman object to a subject. Subha succeeds in being treated as a “woman of insight—aseer and not just a sight to be seen” because she was willing to eschew “the femalegaze” (169).

In the Nyingma lore is a story about Lady Yeshe Tsogyel (sometimes Tsogyal),an eighth-century Tibetan princess, who greets her rapists enthusiastically and trans-forms the event into the occasion for their enlightenment. According to the text,Lady Yeshe Tsogyel defines the rape as a “lustful disposition” and “creative visionof the deity.” She seems neither victimized nor vengeful. Some scholars thereforeconsider her as the most powerful female Buddhist archetype and a tantric adept.

Hindu literature also contains references to rape that scholars mention in thecontext of marriage customs. For instance, the foundational text of the Hindu re-ligion, the Mahabharata, includes narratives that praise “marriage by capture.”Even Lord Krishna, one of the major divine figures in Hinduism, is sometimescharacterized as “a bold woman-snatcher” (Meyer, 68–69). Stories tell of men likeBhashma, the son of Cantanu, and Duryodhana who abduct women. In these talesthe abductions involve forced sexual intercourse, but eventually the women cometo love their abductors and consent to marriage. One story tells of Arjuna who seesKrishna’s sister, Subhadra. Krishna encourages Arjuna to “carry her off by force,”which he does. In time, Arjuna marries the willing Subhadra. Moreover, myths andrituals about goddesses, particularly the goddess Kali, know of sexual violence.Some interpreters view these texts as religious sublimation for the manifold rapesof women and girls. Women who are violated in society become mythical men-killers. As a result of this religious dynamic, men and women have been seen toignore the actual violence against women and girls.

Furthermore, the Upanishads, sacred Hindu texts, contain a passage that excusesthe rape of a woman who is unwilling to consent to sexual intercourse: “If sheshould not grant him his desire, he should bribe her. If she still does not grant him

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his desire, he should hit her with a stick or with his hand, and overcome her, saying:‘With power, with glory I take away your glory!’ Thus she becomes inglorious”(Pinkham, 68). Dalit (“Untouchables”) opponents to the Hindu caste system quotethese and other passages to demonstrate the prejudicial nature of Hinduism. Theyalso describe the system of the Devadasi as an illustration for the prejudicial thoughtpatterns of this religion. The system of Devadasi coerced young pubescent girls,often from the Dalit cast, to be offered to the deities in Brahmanic temples. After“the first night,” traditionally spent with a priest or a wealthy man, the girls wereforced into lifelong prostitution.

In conclusion, prejudices and stereotypes about rape permeate much of religiousdiscourse and practice. Consequently, religious leaders and thinkers have rarelysided with raped victim-survivors. Only with the emergence of feminist critique arerape-prone religious literature, ritual, myth, and beliefs recognized for their harmof women. It remains to be seen whether the feminist critique will substantiallychange religious traditions so that they foster a rape-free world. See also: Mythol-ogy; Tribal Customs and Laws.

Suggested Reading: Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’sIssues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books, 1984); Sarah Caldwell, Oh Terri-fying Mother: Sexuality, Violence and Worship of the Goddess Kali (New Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999); Pamela Cooper-White, “Rape,” in The Cry of Tamar: Violenceagainst Women and the Church’s Response (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995, 77–99); Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice (Boulder, CO: WestviewPress, 1998); Human Rights Watch, “Broken People: IX. Attacks on Dalit Women: A Patternof Impunity,” http://hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-11.htm; Jerome, The Letters of St.Jerome: Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 1 (Westminster, MD: Newmann Press, 1963); JohannJakob Meyer, Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of IndianCulture (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971); Mary Pellauer, “Augustine on Rape: One Chap-ter in the Theological Tradition,” in Violence against Women and Children: A ChristianTheological Sourcebook, ed. Carol J. Adams and Marie M. Fortune (New York: Continuum,1998), 206–241; Mildreth Worth Pinkham, Woman in the Sacred Scriptures of Hinduism(New York: Columbia University Press, 1941); Asifa Quraishi, “Her Honor: An IslamicCritique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective,” in Windowsof Faith: Muslim Scholar-Activists in North America, ed. Gisela Webb (Syracuse, NY: Syr-acuse University Press, 2000), 102–135; Susanne Scholz, “Was It Really Rape in Genesis 34?Biblical Scholarship as a Reflection of Cultural Assumptions,” in Escaping Eden: New Fem-inist Perspectives on the Bible, ed. Harold C. Washington et al. (Sheffield: Sheffield AcademicPress, 1998), 182–198; “What Is the Devadasi System,” http://www.dalitstan.org/books/decline/decline11.html; Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Femininein Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996);Lady Yeshe Tsogyel, http://www.dabase.net/padskydan.htm.

SUSANNE SCHOLZ

REPORTING. See Media; Rape Shield Laws.

RESISTANCE. Resistance is opposing another’s will. When the desires of humanbeings conflict, resistance defines the boundary between their wills. Passive or active,expressed or unexpressed, subtle or violent, brief or sustained, premeditated orspontaneous, resistance is always an opposing force against the advancing will ofanother. And given that desires often conflict, resistance pervades human relations.

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Nowhere in human relations do desires more frequently conflict than when pur-suing sexual pleasure. The pursuit of shared sexual pleasure is rife with advancesand resistance. Moreover, differing personal experiences and beliefs about sexualityeasily make another’s desires unclear. For many, the interplay and ambiguity ofdesires contribute to sexual pleasure. Indeed for some, dramatic staging of rolesprovides an opportunity when one’s own resistance to another’s will can be safelyand pleasurably overpowered. Rape occurs when one person’s resistance to an-other’s sexual intentions is overpowered without consent. Rape is when one’sboundary of resistance against a conflicting will is trespassed. Regardless of ambi-guities, overpowering someone’s resistance to sexual activity can cause irreparabletrauma and is legally inexcusable.

Evidence of resistance has an important role in the legal determination of a rapevictim’s lack of consent. In many cases, a victim’s resistance is unambiguous, mak-ing determination and prosecution of rape relatively straightforward. If the perpe-trator had to forcibly overcome significant physical resistance by the victim,indications like bruises and cuts will likely be left on the victim’s body. Historically,evidence of a high level of physical resistance was required for prosecution: “[T]hefemale must resist to the utmost of her ability, and such resistance must continuetill the offense is complete” (Reidhead v. State, 31 Ariz 70, 71, 250 P. 366, 377(1926)). This is often called the force-resistance requirement. Rape law reformershave since argued that a standard of “utmost resistance” is not sensitive to inter-personal dynamics present during rape. They argue that dynamics like severe im-balances of social power, a victim’s fear of bodily harm, or misinterpretation ofintentions must be considered when determining the level and type of resistancerequired for demonstrating nonconsent. Legally, “reasonable resistance” has cometo replace “utmost resistance.” Consequently, other forms, like verbal resistance,would be sufficient indication of nonconsent.

While a broader consideration of resistance is more useful for describing theviolation of a victim’s will, it forces legislation to navigate problematic ambiguityin human relations. Interpreting another person’s sexual behavior can be difficult.Even more difficult is determining people’s desires and resistance from the third-party vantage point of the court. Nonphysical resistance rarely leaves clear evidence.For instance, a person may have rebuffed another’s advances by clearly saying “no,”and then, for fear of bodily harm, have submitted to the other’s persistence. In thiscase, determination of the victim’s consent may be limited to judging between theirconflicting stories. Such judgment is further obscured when the individuals havehad a prior relationship.

More complex problems arise from disagreement over the forms and extent ofresistance necessary to constitute rape. Should a verbal “no” be enough resistance?Is one always responsible for asking about another’s desires or communicating one’sown? Who is responsible for a misunderstanding? What if one resists after initiallysubmitting? Disagreement in society about the nature of sexuality, sexual ethics,and gender relationships contributes to both the difficulty and the importance ofachieving consensus on clear standards. Beliefs about appropriate sexual behaviorand responsibility differ widely. For example, some believe that for a woman to be“respectable,” she must initially offer “token resistance,” even though she actuallywishes to engage a man sexually. As such, her “no” is interpreted as “yes.” Suchbeliefs are often called “rape myths” by rape law reformers. Rape myths like thisone can influence a man’s response to a woman’s actual resistance. They can also

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influence court members who are deliberating over a case of accused rape. Reform-ers often focus on dismantling rape myths through wide social education move-ments, arguing that misinterpretation of resistance must be addressed by changingfundamental beliefs about sexuality prevalent throughout society.

The boundary between wills that resistance creates, whatever form it takes, is thesite where shared sexual pleasure can become rape. Having one’s resistance to an-other’s will for sexual pleasure overpowered can cause serious physical harm, trau-matically alter one’s sense of self, and forever affect one’s relation to other people.Considering the amount and forms of a victim’s resistance is crucial for the legalprosecution of rape cases. But given the inherent ambiguity of human relations, thedifficulty in determining forms of resistance by a third party, and conflicting socialbeliefs about sexuality, the nature of resistance to rape will remain a site of constantpublic dispute. See also: Rape Prevention.

Suggested Reading: Susan Ehrlich, Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent (NewYork: Routledge, 2001); Alan Soble, ed., The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings,4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).

JUDSON ODELL

ROHYPNOL. Rohypnol, known in clubs and on the street as “Roofies,” “Roche,”and the “Forget-me pill,” is primarily purchased for its use in situations of “drug-facilitated sexual assault.” Rohypnol is particularly dangerous since it is tasteless,odorless, and dissolves easily in carbonated beverages. As with many other clubdrugs, its sedative and toxic effects are increased with the use of alcohol. However,even without the use of alcohol, a dose as small as one milligram can impair avictim for as long as 8 to 12 hours. While Rohypnol is generally administered orallyby dissolving it in a drink, it can also be ground up and snorted. Chemically,Rohypnol is categorized in the class of drugs known as benzodiazepines (e.g., Val-ium, Xanax, and Versed). Although it has not been approved by the federal Foodand Drug Administration for medical use in the United States, it is manufacturedand distributed by Hoffman-LaRoche in 64 countries as a treatment for insomnia,as a sedative, and as a presurgical anesthetic.

The symptoms of Rohypnol include muscle relaxation, sleepiness, nausea, diffi-culties in speaking or even moving, visual problems, hypotension (low blood pres-sure), hallucinations, and blackouts that last from 8 to 24 hours. Chronic use canlead to physical and psychological dependence. Withdrawal is also dangerous inthat it can lead to headaches, confusion, numbness, convulsions, and shock. Ro-hypnol can produce profound anterograde amnesia (i.e., people cannot rememberthe events that they experienced while under the effects of the drug). Even underhypnosis, these events cannot be recalled because they were not actually processed.Consequently, survivors of sexual assault who were given Rohypnol cannot identifytheir attackers. See also: Ecstasy; Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB); Ketamine.

Suggested Reading: National Women’s Health Information Center, “The ‘Date Rape’Drug,” http://www.4woman.gov/faq/rohypnol.htm.


ROIPHE, KATIE (1968– ). Author of The Morning After: Sex, Feminism andFear on Campus (1993), Katie (Katherine) Roiphe criticized feminists for enlarging

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the definition of rape to include sexual contact brought about by verbal coercionon the grounds that this expanded definition of rape reinforced the stereotype ofwomen as weak and passive. Roiphe claimed that the emphasis on “verbal coer-cion” was a mask for claims that “women need to be protected from men whodon’t share their social background.” Roiphe also alleged that many female collegestudents who are motivated by guilt or regret over consensual sexual encountersmake false claims of date rape. Her characterization of the political climate oncollege campuses as dominated by overly vigilant feminists resonated with manyconservative critics. Because Roiphe was in her twenties when her ideas first gar-nered national attention, her work is often cited as that of a “Generation X” fem-inist, in contrast to older feminists whose theories about rape centered on theimportance of believing a woman’s accounts of her own experience. Critics of Roi-phe believe that she trivializes the reality of rape. Her critics also point to Roiphe’ssheltered Manhattan upbringing and Ivy League education when describing thelimits of Roiphe’s perspective. Roiphe is also the author of Last Night in Paradise:Sex and Morals and the Century’s End (1997), a discussion of sexual behavior inthe HIV-fearing, post–sexual revolution era. Her first novel She Still Haunts Me: ANovel (2002) is a fictionalized account between Charles Dodgson (who wrote underthe pen name Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Won-derland. See also: Dworkin, Andrea; Feminist Movement; Freidan, Betty; Mac-Kinnon, Catharine A.; Pornography; Steinem, Gloria.

Suggested Reading: Katherine T. Bartlett, Angela Harris, and Deborah Rhode, eds., Genderand the Law: Theory, Doctrine and Commentary (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2002).

BRIDGET J. CRAWFORD

RULES OF EVIDENCE. Guidelines for what can and cannot be used as evidencein a rape trial are found in the rules of evidence of the jurisdiction in which thedefendant is tried. The purpose of these rules is to clarify all forms of acceptableevidence that are relevant to the scope of a trial so that defendants can mount themost complete defense possible. In both state and federal rules, there exists a rapeshield provision that limits the evidence that a defendant can introduce about thevictim’s prior sexual history.

The Federal Rules of Evidence offer an example of such a provision. Under theoriginal Rule 404(a)(2) (regarding the introduction of character evidence for crimevictims, including victims of rape), rape defendants could present evidence of thevictim’s past sexual behavior in mounting a defense that the sexual act in questionwas consensual. However, the broad scope of the rule permitted wide-ranging in-quiries into the sex lives of rape victims, thus distracting juries from the defendants’conduct, embarrassing and harassing the victims, and discouraging victims frompressing charges or cooperating with prosecutors.

For this reason, a new Federal Rule of Evidence (Rule 412) was included in thePrivacy Protection for Rape Victims Act of 1978, which was signed into law byPresident Jimmy Carter on October 30 of that year. The rule’s intent was “toprotect rape victims from the degrading and embarrassing disclosure of intimatedetails about their private lives” during the course of rape trials, which wouldpresumably encourage more victims to report instances of sexual assault and tocooperate with prosecuting attorneys.

Rule 412 prohibits the introduction at trial of reputation or opinion evidence of

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a rape victim’s sexual history. The justification for that rule is that prior consensualsexual acts are irrelevant to the issue of whether a victim consented to have sexwith a particular person at a particular time. Three important exceptions to Rule412 were included to protect the defendant’s interest in presenting a full defense.The first concerns evidence that a rape defendant has a constitutional right to in-troduce; the second is for evidence of sexual behavior between the victim and per-sons other than the defendant, which the defendant offers as proof that he was notthe source of semen or injury; and the third is for past sexual behavior between thevictim and defendant, which the defendant is allowed to offer in order to showconsent. In the second and third instances, such evidence can be introduced onlywhen the trial judge finds that it is both relevant and more probative than preju-dicial. See also: Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn; Michigan v. Lucas; RapeShield Laws.

Suggested Reading: Barbara E. Bergman and Nancy Hollander, Wharton’s Criminal Evi-dence, 15th ed. (Eegan, MN: West, 2001), 4: 41.

GREGORY M. DUHL

S

SCHOOLS. A wide range of sex-related crimes are perpetrated against childrenranging in ages from approximately 4 to 18 years old. For younger children, thestudies and stories confirm that a wide incidence of molestation and rape with anobject are most common. At the other end of the age spectrum, forcible rape anddrug-facilitated sexual assault are typical, as well as daily sexual harassment. Gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual–identified youth suffer harassment relentlessly. Stu-dents identified as “disabled” by others have a much greater chance of beingsexually assaulted.

Interact, the rape crisis center of Wake County, North Carolina, provides recentnational statistics in their report “N.C. 2001 Rape Statistics: Children at HighestRisk.” The following rape statistics are cited in this report:

• Boys and girls ages 19 and under are the most frequent victims of rape.

• Approximately 1.8 million adolescents in the United States have been the victims ofsexual assault.

• Thirty-three percent of sexual assaults occur when the victim is between the ages of12 and 17.

• Females comprised 82 percent of all juvenile victims.

• Teens 16 to 19 years of age were 3.5 times more likely than the general populationto be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

• Twenty-three percent of all sexual offenders were under the age of 18.

• An offender was arrested in 32 percent of the cases involving victims ages 12 to 17.

• Forty-two percent of girls younger than 15 years reported that their first sexualintercourse experience was nonconsensual.

Due to the pandemic of sexual violence in schools in the United States, the gov-ernment stepped in to monitor and implement solutions for the situation. One res-olution was the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1994. Thisact provided funding for school-based violence prevention programs. The National

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Center for Education Statistics was funded to research violence in the schools, andthe result was a report titled Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. PublicSchools: 1996–97. The center found that 10 percent of crimes reported to schoolofficials were violent in nature (“murder, suicide, rape or sexual battery, physicalattack or fight with a weapon, or robbery”). Four thousand rapes, defined as “rape,fondling, indecent liberties, child molestation or sodomy,” were reported in schoolsthat year. For every 1,000 students in schools around the country, according to thisreport, 0.1 reported rape to a teacher, counselor, or principal. In contrast, the Na-tional Crime Victimization Survey of 1995 surveyed persons in their homes andshowed a much larger percentage of minors as the victims of sexual crime: Forevery 1,000 12- to 14-year-olds, 3.5 reported rape, and out of every 1,000 15- to17-year-olds, 6 reported.

While there is a marked increase of reporting outside the school, this is notentirely due to the incredible safety of the public institutions of learning in theUnited States. In many schools, abstinence is the only sex education taught. Theprevalence of rape myths among students and teachers is widespread. If there is nounderstanding adult to turn to, or the child/adolescent/young adult is not believedbecause of his or her past behavior, the crime may go “unreported.” Therefore,surveys such as the education study cited can make public schools seem like safehavens. However, the reality of the students’ situations can become so unbearablethat the circumstances may warrant involvement with the courts for resolution.That was the case in an instance of sexual harassment that has changed nationalschool policy.

In May 24, 1999, Title IX, a 1972 amendment to the Constitution, was chal-lenged in a lawsuit filed in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education by parentsof a fifth-grade girl who had been repeatedly sexually harassed. The crux of thecase was the charge that the school had purposely ignored the case and that theharassment impeded the student’s education. The school board lost the case, andthe plaintiff was awarded damages. The result of that case is that a student cannow sue any school for one-on-one sexual harassment charges when the propercriteria are met. See also: Campus Rape; Campus Security Act (Clery Act).

Suggested Reading: Interact, “N.C. 2001 Rape Statistics: Children at Highest Risk,” http://www.interactofwake.org/home.htm; Julie Lewis, “Supreme Court Updated: Davis v. MonroeCounty Board of Education,” American Association of School Administrators, http://www.aasa.org; Ryan Morgan, “Colorado University Faces Title IX Suit in Rape Case,” The Den-ver Post, October 21, 2002; “Statement by Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Ph.D., U.S. Commissionerof Education Statistics,” Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996–97,National Center for Education Statistics,” http://nces.ed.gov/.

EMILY RIVENDELL

SCOTTSBORO BOYS CASE. On March 31, 1931, two white women, VictoriaPrice (age 21) and Ruby Bates (age 17), claimed that they had been beaten andraped by a gang of nine African American youths while traveling illegally on boarda train through northeastern Alabama. The women’s allegations sparked a nationalfuror over the case of the “Scottsboro Boys.” Advocates for the defense claimedthat the women’s “low moral character” cast doubt on their charges of rape. Theprosecution argued that the women deserved equal protection under the law andthat evidence of semen found on the women indicated that they had been sexually

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assaulted. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the case highlightedmany of the racial, gender, and class tensions evident in the New South.

Price and Bates claimed that they had hopped freight trains to travel to Chatta-nooga in search of work and were attacked on board the train as they returned toAlabama. The women claimed that the defendants were armed with knives andguns and that they traveled together in a gang. The women’s descriptions were atodds with the physical characteristics and origins of the defendants. Charlie Weems,Clarence Norris, Ozie Powell, Olin Montgomery, and Willie Roberson were fromGeorgia, whereas Haywood Patterson, Andy and Roy Wright, and Eugene Williamswere from Tennessee. The defendants’ ages ranged from 12 to 20 years, with RoyWright being the youngest. Olin Montgomery was nearly blind, and Willie Rob-erson suffered from syphilis and gonorrhea and had to walk with a cane; physiciansconcluded that sexual intercourse would have been extremely painful for Roberson.

The first trial took place from April 6 to 9, in Scottsboro, Alabama; a series offour trials and numerous retrials would take place over the next six years in Scotts-boro and in Decatur. Physicians who examined the women testified that they foundlittle evidence of sexual assault; they did acknowledge that both Price and Bateshad had recent sexual intercourse, citing the presence of “nonmotile” (inactive)semen present in the victim’s bodies two hours after the alleged rape. All of thedefendants claimed to be innocent; however, several of the men offered conflictingaccounts of the train, and Norris and Patterson accused several of the others ofcommitting the crime. The initial trials resulted in a guilty verdict for eight of thedefendants; twelve-year-old Roy Wright was awarded a mistrial due to his age.Judge Alfred Hawkins sentenced the eight others to death by electrocution. Thecase became a cause celebre as northern papers decried the “legal lynching” of eightmen on flimsy evidence. Both the International Labor Defense (ILD) wing of theCommunist Party of the United States and the National Association for the Ad-vancement of Colored People (NAACP) worked on behalf of the defendants; how-ever, these organizations remained at loggerheads throughout the proceedings. TheILD considered the NAACP too moderate; members of the NAACP thought theCommunists were jeopardizing the defendants’ lives to provide propaganda forspread of communism. Eventually the ILD, the NAACP, and the American CivilLiberties Union (ACLU) would form a joint partnership to establish the ScottsboroDefense Committee in 1935.

Subsequent trials would castigate the female accusers; defense attorneys claimedthat both women had engaged in interracial relationships and had worked as pros-titutes in Alabama. Defense attorneys suggested that the women leveled rapecharges to distract public attention from their own vagrancy and criminal back-ground. In Powell v. Alabama (1932) and Norris v. Alabama (1932), the U.S.Supreme Court overturned convictions, citing inadequate counsel and proceduralerrors.

In 1933, Bates recanted her testimony, claiming that she and Price had fabricatedthe rape charges in an effort to escape arrest for vagrancy. She claimed that bothPrice and herself had had voluntary sexual intercourse with male acquaintances thenight before the alleged rape. By this point, however, Bates appeared to have re-ceived financial assistance from the ILD, and her testimony was considered suspect;after the trial she briefly toured the country as a guest speaker for the ILD. She alsowrote to the defendants in prison, appeared with their parents at rallies on theirbehalf, and met with four of the men who were released in 1937.

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Subsequent proceedings (1935–1937) resulted in renewed convictions for fourdefendants, but in 1937, Alabama prosecutors dropped charges against Montgom-ery, Roy Wright, Roberson, and Williams. Charles Weems was released from prisonin 1943; the following year Andy Wright and Clarence Norris were also released;however, both men broke parole by moving north and were sent back to prison.Ozie Powell remained in prison on unrelated charges. Haywood Patterson escapedfrom prison in 1948 and moved to Detroit, where he was eventually convicted ofmanslaughter in another case and returned to prison. In 1976 Alabama GovernorGeorge Wallace pardoned Clarence Norris, the sole living defendant in the Scotts-boro case. Bates died that same year; Price remarried and moved to Tennessee. Pricemaintained her story of rape until she died in 1982.

The Scottsboro trials remain an infamous example of the racial prejudice andsuspicion black men faced in the South. The economic circumstances that led Priceand Bates to ride the rails in search of work, legal or otherwise, received littleattention at the time. Most contemporary historians and legal scholars concede thatPrice’s and Bates’s claims of rape were specious, yet allegations of rape made bywhite female accusers carried more weight in a society dominated by white suprem-acy. See also: Gang Rape; Interracial Rape; Rape-Lynch Scenario.

Suggested Reading: Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, rev. ed.(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979); James Goodman, Stories of Scotts-boro (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994); Kwando Mbiassi Kinshasa, The Man from Scotts-boro: Clarence Norris in His Own Words (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997); HaywoodPatterson, Scottsboro Boy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950).

REGAN SHELTON

SECONDARY RAPE. Secondary rape is the term commonly given to describe theprocess of investigation that agencies, institutions, or individuals perform whenquestioning a rape victim. It is considered “secondary” rape because the event hasthe same characteristics as the primary or original rape: It exerts power, it is in-vasive, it is destructive of privacy, and it denies the victim control over his or herbody and person. For these reasons, some women also use the term secondary rapeto describe being forced to give birth after conceiving from a rape.

An example of secondary rape is when police question the victim in a way thattreats her or him as a perpetrator rather than a person who was injured. Officersmight use language that casts doubt on the victim’s complaint, is accusatory, orinsinuates that the victim did something to instigate and cause the rape. Even withinthe last decade police have regarded some rape complaints with suspicion. Blackwomen, poor women, or women considered to be promiscuous are often not be-lieved. Before U.S. states began enacting laws against marital rape in the 1970s,married women of any social class or background could not charge their spouseswith rape. By extension, police also would not accept complaints of rape from alive-in partner of either sex.

During the processing of the crime, the victim goes through many stages of sec-ondary rape. She or he is questioned and subjected to inspection and photographyof the body parts that were penetrated, touched, injured, or covered with semen orother body fluids. The bright lights and awkward positions put the victim in thesame or more vulnerable circumstances from a psychological point of view thanthe original rape. Once again the privacy and integrity of the individual is compro-

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mised and invaded. Getting evidence in a rape case results in a secondary rape formany individuals because it contains many of the elements of the primary rape.

After law enforcement and medical personnel question and obtain evidence fromthe victim, a period of time elapses while the legal system arranges for identificationof the perpetrator and for a court hearing. During this time, the victim is urged toseek professional help in dealing with the trauma. As the event fades from thepresent, healing begins to take place. However, since the law requires the victim totestify against the perpetrator or perpetrators if they are found, the shock of goingto court and facing his or her attacker, as well as having to answer the attorneys’questions, may awaken the profound psychological distress and the victim is forcedto relive the rape once again, this time in public. See also: Rape Kit; Rape TraumaSyndrome.

Suggested Reading: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (NewYork: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Lee Madigan and Nancy Gamble, The Second Rape: So-ciety’s Continued Betrayal of the Victim (New York: Lexington Books, 1989).

LANA THOMPSON

SEDUCTION. Seduction is generally understood as an act or phenomenon aimedat misleading a person or a group of people. Enticed by a seducer, for instance, theseduced is supposedly led astray and persuaded to engage in acts that are consideredto be morally wrong or unlawful. In a more figural sense of the term, groups ofpeople are said to be seduced by political ideologies and economic systems, forexample, by the mechanisms of global consumer culture. Holding strong sexualovertones, the concept seduction tends to suggest that, oftentimes in addition to animbalance in age or mental maturity, the relationship of seducer and seduced ischaracterized by a social, economic, gender, or racial hierarchy. Due to its multiplemoral and ethic implications, the term seduction thus involves a fluid dynamics ofpower and guilt, which engages both the seducer, who acts with an intention tomislead, and the seduced, who seemingly allows herself or himself to be led astray.

As a highly contested term, seduction is frequently employed to distinguish con-sensual sexual acts from sexual acts that involve physical coercion. While the con-cept seduction entails the overriding of the conscious will of the seduced by theseducer, oftentimes by rhetorical or verbal coercion or the powerful physical pres-ence of seducer or seductress, historically it has also implied a certain degree ofconsent on the part of the seduced. Seduction therefore seems to operate somewherebetween courtship and rape. By convention, since any equivocation and acquiescentgesture on the victim’s, traditionally the woman’s, part signal seduction, merelytheir absence and unequivocal resistance mark rape. The term seduction thereforetends to displace the guilt from the perpetrator to the victim. Feminist criticismholds that legal institutions have tended to reduce cases of rape to seduction nar-ratives, which in turn redefined rape as constituted not by the violator’s coercionbut by the victim’s nonconsent.

The tendency to view seduction and rape as binary opposition is partly due tothe significance of the seduction motif, in both its comic and tragic mode, for lit-erary history. Projecting fictions of premarital sexuality leading to loss and thedownfall of both seducer and seduced, early British and American novels, such asSamuel Richardson’s Clarissa (1747–1748) and Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Tem-ple (1791), established the seduction motif as the dominant figure of (hetero-)

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sexual encounter/seduction The cultural effect of seduction fictions on the construc-tion of sexuality, as well as gender, class, and race relations, has been manifold.Even though Victorian seduction narratives upheld a single standard of chastity formen and women and channeled both female sexuality and patterns of manhood,seduction narratives have tended to establish gender differences as difference insexuality and to project female sexuality as victimization. As a counterforce toenlightened ideas, seduction narratives insisted that new liberties and the decline ofparental control of marriage made women increasingly vulnerable and thereby trig-gered the fetishization of virginity as capital. Identifying premarital sexuality witheconomic danger and social death, seduction narratives were geared to limit femaledesire to matrimony where sexual intercourse, consensual or not, is a legitimate actand “duty.” At the same time seduction narratives have lastingly equivocated theviolence that sexual acts possibly entail, overriding the difference between consen-sual and nonconsensual sexuality.

The term seduction also gained prominence in psychoanalysis. In the 1890s, Sig-mund Freud proposed a theory of the aetiology of neuroses called the seductiontheory, which argued that neuroses resulted from the aftereffects of sexual abusein childhood. Unable to discern whether his patients’ traumatic memories weretriggered by imagined or real scenes of abuse, Freud discarded this theory, however,and turned toward the exploration of infantile sexuality and the Oedipal complexinstead. Feminist critics retrospectively take this abandonment as a turning awayfrom the widespread sexual abuse on children. They also objected to Freud’s con-ception of female sexuality as by nature masochistic, which has contributed to ageneral tendency to blur the distinction between seduction and rape and to writesexual violence out of the social text. See also: Literature, World and American;Rape, Definitions of.

Suggested Reading: John Forrester, “Rape, Seduction, and Psychoanalysis,” in Rape, ed.Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 57–83; Christine Froula,“The Daughter’s Seduction: Sexual Violence and Literary History,” Signs 11.4 (1986): 621–644; Saidiya Hartman, “Seduction and the Ruses of Power,” Callaloo 19.2 (1996): 537–560; Jenny Newman, ed., The Faber Book of Seductions (London: Faber, 1988); SabineSielke, “Seduced and Enslaved: Sexual Violence in Antebellum American Literature and Con-temporary Feminist Discourse,” in The Historical and Political Turn in Literary Studies, ed.Winfried Fluck, REAL—Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 11(1995): 299–324.

SABINE SIELKE

SELF-DEFENSE/SELF-DEFENSE COURSES. Anyone confronted by an attackerhas the legal right to resist actual or threatened violence. Self-defense is the act ofresisting with whatever force or means reasonably necessary. Since rapists utilizeviolence, weapons, and threats, individuals should be prepared to resist attacks withphysical, verbal, and psychological strategies. Any amount of physical resistanceincreases the likelihood of stopping a conflict and avoiding rape, without increasingchance of injury. Self-defense classes, based mostly on martial arts from Asia andmilitary hand-to-hand combat techniques, prepare individuals to react with precisemaneuvers in order to terminate any attack with a single technique.

Classes offer hands-on training in avoidance skills, threat assessment, crisis de-escalating techniques, and physical defense techniques from standing and fallen

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positions. Classes prepare individuals against grabs, punches, kicks, armed attacks,and multiple attackers. Instructors teach maneuvers to escape from various posi-tions during attempted rape, no matter how large or strong the attacker. Studentslearn legalities, such as what constitutes unnecessary force. Courses are taught in-crementally, gradually increasing levels of contact and simulation. Instructors ad-dress fears and concerns. Upon completion, students should know a variety ofoptions when facing attack.

Other maneuvers taught include jabbing the bridge of the nose, kicking the groinor shins, grabbing and jerking the testicles, breaking out of single- or double-wristgrabs, escaping from front- and back-body grabs (bear hugs), escaping choke holds,removing a weapon from an attacker’s possession, releasing oneself from hair grabs,and breaking ribs.

Particularly devastating maneuvers include kicking an attacker’s kidneys, punch-ing the solar plexus nerve center using a single-knuckle fist, jamming thumbs deepinto eye sockets, and grabbing the throat to squeeze the trachea shut. These dis-abling techniques can leave an attacker in severe pain, in sudden shock, uncon-scious, even dead.

Physical resistance should only be used when physical attack is imminent. Legally,individuals must not use more force than is reasonably necessary to escape or ter-minate the attack. For success, individuals must react in the first few seconds of anattack. They must immediately analyze the situation, location, appropriateness offorce, and chances of escape. Each attack is different. Through training, techniquesbecome second nature and move from concepts to instinctive reactions based onmuscle memory.

Verbal strategies are another component of self-defense. Screaming “fire” is psy-chologically more agitating than “rape.” It should cause public response. Victimscan also begin to immediately yell about recognizing the attacker, the police brand-ing the attacker as a rapist, or resurfacing after years to inform the attacker’s part-ner, children, and coworkers of the incident. If these statements are made duringor after rape, attackers may murder to avoid later detection.

Remaining calm, victims might convince rapists there is no physical or psycho-logical threat. Statements about having a venereal disease or HIV/AIDS or sug-gesting that sex would be pleasant without a weapon present can be deterrents.After distracting or calming attackers, a surprise physical technique can be exer-cised.

Other nonphysical resistance strategies include keeping several feet of distancebetween oneself and others and keeping one hand free when carrying objects. Whenneither hand is free, there is a greater risk of being targeted.

Psychological deterrent strategies include urinating, defecating, or vomiting ononeself, pretending to be insane, or pretending to faint. Rapists may panic, may nolonger feel sexually aroused, or may feel that the dominance and control set outfor has been accomplished.

Some methods, such as begging or crying, have not been shown to be effectiveand may also increase risk of injury. While compliance may reduce the chance ofinjury, it does not help avoid attack. Chemical sprays can be effective, but they areonly useful if accessible in a matter of seconds.

Self-defense classes are usually taught by martial arts and law enforcement com-munities. They may be offered specifically to women or may specifically address

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rape prevention. Classes are usually free or low cost at martial arts clubs, collegecampuses, and women’s or community centers.

Self-defense knowledge is critical to surviving rape. A counterattack must be swiftand brutal to stop an attacker whose mind is made up to harm. In the end, victimsact, react, or take no action based on instinct, intuition, location, and personalchoice. Rape is a crime whether victims resist or not. See also: Rape Education;Rape Myths.

Suggested Reading: Paul Henry Danylewich, Fearless: The Complete Personal Safety Guidefor Women (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001); Michael Vassolo, The Manual ofUnarmed Self-defense (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 1999).

ELIZABETH JENNER

SERIAL RAPE AND SERIAL RAPISTS. Serial rape is a type of criminal offensethat only became recognized by the general public in the 1970s. According to theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) definition, serial rape involves sexual attacksupon 10 or more stranger victims; however, local police forces and the generalpublic frequently use the term after more than two similar rapes have occurred.The reluctance of victims to report rapes and the absence of effective police pro-cedures may mean that this type of rape is an old phenomenon only recently iden-tified. Stylized verbal scripts demanded from the stranger victim, sadistic or violentbehavior, the rapist’s inability to penetrate his victim or to climax, and the collec-tion of souvenirs mark serial attacks.

The few studies conducted upon serial rapists show that these men, particularlythe most violent ones, are usually white males of European ancestry who targetwhite females. Black rapists, by contrast, are known to cross color lines. Mostoffenders enjoy stable employment, live with someone, and have been married atleast once. Significant numbers of these men experienced troubled childhoods, withmany reporting juvenile alcohol abuse, cruelty to animals, fire setting, stealing, andassaults against adults. A majority of rapists, 68 percent, began their sexual pre-dation as voyeurs.

The FBI has used interviews with serial rapists to group this type of offender intofour camps: power-reassurance, power-assertive, anger-retaliatory, and anger-excitation. All of the men in the categories share a psychosexual trait that drivesthem to repeatedly attack. Unable to match reality to their sexual fantasies, the menfeel the need to try again, thereby creating a process that results in serial sex crime.The pattern of behavior of serial rapists is similar to that of serial killers since manymurderers begin their criminal careers as rapists and often intersperse murders withnonlethal sexual assaults.

The power-reassurance attacker is the most common type of serial rapist. Oftenreferred to as the “gentleman rapist,” he bolsters his masculinity through the ex-ercise of power over women. Victims are preselected through surveillance or peep-ing activities, surprised, and usually attacked in the evening or early morning. Therapist may have several potential victims, all in the same vicinity, lined up. If onepotential assault is foiled, the rapist will often seek another victim nearby on thesame night. He will take souvenirs from his victims and keep a record of his crimes.

The power-assertive rapist, the second most common type of serial rapist, useshis attacks to express his “natural” dominance over women. Unlike the power-reassurance rapist, this rapist is regarded as a selfish offender who is unconcerned

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over the welfare of his victim. He will often use a con approach and then force thevictim to engage in repeated sexual assaults. The victim is often left in a state ofpartial nudity at the assault location, which will be a place of convenience andsafety for the offender.

The anger-retaliatory rapist is motivated by feelings of rage and retaliation: Hewants to “get even” with women. The victims are symbols of someone else, oftenexhibiting certain appearance, dress, or occupational similarities. Sex is used topunish and degrade, and the attacks are typically frenzied with excessive levels offorce. Since the attacks occur as the result of an emotional outburst, they lackpremeditation. There is little planning or advance victim selection. The attacks aresporadic and can occur at any time of the day or night.

The anger-excitation rapist, the least common type, achieves sexual excitementfrom observing the victim’s reaction to physical or psychological pain. The rapes,characterized by fear and brutality, may involve torture. The offender uses a conapproach, attacks and binds the victim, and then takes her to a preselected locationthat offers privacy. He will usually keep her for a period of time and may make avisual or audio record of his activities.

Contrary to public perception, most serial rapists attack in the homes of thevictims. According to FBI researchers, only 6 percent of rapes occurred in streetsor alleys, with another 6 percent of victims attacked in parking lots or on highways.Serial rapists are more likely to attack in the summer in neighborhoods character-ized by ethnic diversity, high population turnover, and multiple unit dwellings.

The study of serial rape is still in its infancy. Difficulty in recognizing the presenceof a serial rapist and difficulty in capturing such an attacker have resulted in a lackof knowledge about such predators. See also: Murder; Sex Offenders; Voyeurism.

Suggested Reading: Philip Jenkins, Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary GreatBritain (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1992); D. Kim Rossmo, Geographic Profiling (BocaRaton, FL: CRC Press, 2000).

CARYN E. NEUMANN

SEX OFFENDERS. The scope of sex offenses changes over time, mirroring shiftsin cultural attitudes about acceptable sexual practices. Cultural attitudes also influ-ence whether sex offenders are perceived as criminals, mentally ill, or a dangerouscombination of both. The first edition of the American Psychiatric Association’sDiagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) included the term “sociopathic person-ality disturbance,” with “sexual deviation” listed as a subtype. DSM-IV (1994) listsexhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism,transvestic fetishism, and voyeurism as psychosexual disorders. These disorders arenot, however, synonymous with sex crimes. Not everyone diagnosed with a psy-chosexual disorder commits a criminal act. State and federal laws define sexualoffenses, further complicating categorizing sex offenders by geographic jurisdiction.A sex offender, therefore, is someone who has committed or attempted to commitany type of illegal or nonconsensual sexual act and/or any sexual behavior involvingchildren under the legal age of consent, based upon the laws governing the locationwhere the sexual behavior occurred.

In 1835, James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848), an English physician, blamedcriminal behavior on “moral insanity,” a defect causing perversions of natural im-pulses and inclinations. Francis Galton (1822–1911), an English scientist, founded

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the study of eugenics and advocated limiting reproduction to “suitable” people.Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902), a German psychiatrist, believed hereditywas a factor in “moral degeneracy,” which could lead to rape. His PsychopathiaSexualis (1886) included one of the earliest scientific studies of sexual murderers.He was instrumental in popularizing the idea that homosexuality was a form ofmental illness. The widespread influence of these two men led to laws in the UnitedStates imposing sterilization on sexual deviants.

Early in the twentieth century, “sex psychopath” laws allowed indefinite con-finement of sex offenders to protect the public. However, mental hospitals did nothave effective treatments for sexual deviants. In 1949, Egas Moniz (1874–1955), aPortuguese neurologist, won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work with prefron-tal lobe brain operations. Lobotomies were performed on sexual deviants until theearly 1970s, when new psychoactive drugs became available. After World War II,there was growing concern for the civil rights of accused sex offenders and recog-nition that there was a racial imbalance in the population of sex offenders whowere prosecuted and punished within the legal system. In 1977, the U.S. SupremeCourt ruled that the death penalty for rapists was unconstitutional. The second-wave feminist movement resulted in new theories about sex offenders. SusanBrownmiller’s landmark publication Against Our Will (1975) contended that rap-ists are not sexual deviants at all but extreme examples of “normal” malenesswithin a patriarchal society that is hostile toward women. The term sexual aggres-sive was first used in 1977 to classify offenders who rape or carry out other forcefulsexual acts. Gaps in valid statistical data were acknowledged, and it became obviousthat there was still only limited understanding of the motivations of sexual offend-ers.

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, criminal theories about sexoffenders gained dominance over sociopsychiatric theories. Politicians allocated lessfunding for therapeutic programs for sex offenders and community mental healthservices. Controversial sexual predator commitment laws, registration and com-munity notification laws, and chemical castration laws were enacted during the1990s. New DNA identification databases allow various jurisdictions to track andmonitor known sex offenders. The Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children andSexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994 brought about state sex of-fender registration systems. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Kansas v.Hendricks legalized indefinite postsentence detention of sexually violent predatorsas a form of “civil commitment” to protect the general public. In contrast, theInternational Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO), foundedin 1998, believes that effective treatment, rather than punishment, will result in thereduction of repeat assaults by sex offenders.

The latest example of shifting cultural values defining the scope of sexual offensesoccurred in June 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texasdecriminalized private, same-gender sexual activity between consenting adults in all50 states. This landmark decision typifies the ongoing controversies involved withhuman sexuality, civil rights, and legal definitions of sex offenders. See also: Me-gan’s Law; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists.

Suggested Reading: American Psychiatric Association, Dangerous Sex Offenders: A TaskForce Report of the APA (Washington, DC: Author, 1999); Helen Cothran, ed., SexualViolence: Opposing Viewpoints (Detroit: Gale, 2003); George B. Palermo and Mary Ann

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Farkas, The Dilemma of the Sexual Offender (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 2001);Louis B. Schlesinger, Sexual Murder: Catathymic and Compulsive Homicides (New York:CRC Press, 2004); Bruce J. Winick and John Q. La Fond, eds., Protecting Society fromSexually Dangerous Offenders: Law, Justice, and Therapy (Washington, DC: American Psy-chological Association, 2003).

BETTY J. GLASS

SEXUAL ABUSE ACT OF 1986. In 1986 Congress passed the Sexual Abuse Actin an attempt to deal with the problem of proliferating sexual assaults. The bill,applied to all federal jurisdictions, provided for fines, imprisonment, or both forindividuals who forced other persons to engage in sexual acts against their will orwith those who were unable to give consent. It also expanded the definition ofsexual assault to include acts of a sexual nature beyond the limited identificationof vaginal penetration of a female by a male and recognized that males could alsobe victims of sexual abuse. A separate section of the bill expanded protection forchildren of both sexes.

On November 7, 1986, the Sexual Abuse Act of 1986 became Public Law 99-654. The new law punished individuals who used force in sexual acts and whothreatened their victims with threats of death, serious bodily harm, or kidnapping.It specifically banned sexual acts with individuals who were unconscious and madeit a crime to render a person unconscious through drugs or other intoxicants. Thesection of the law pertaining to children attempted to stem the tide of child por-nography and expanded the Mann Act to protect male children from being takenacross state lines for the purpose of sexual acts.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports for1986, 90,434 forcible rapes were reported to authorities, and some estimates sug-gest that only one in five sexual assaults are reported. Since the new law appliedonly to federal jurisdictions—prisons, post offices, military bases, and Indian res-ervations—the majority of sexual assault cases were unaffected. Congress passed amore inclusive bill with the Violence against Women Act in 1994. See also: Statu-tory Rape.

Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern Press, 2000).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

SEXUAL ASSAULT. The topic of sexual assault generates much interest, in bothpopular and academic discourse. Many terms are used to refer to abusive sexualbehavior, and sexual assault falls between the more specific crimes like rape andthe more general categories like sexual harassment. For example, sexual assault mayinclude rape, but some harassing behaviors will not be seen officially as sexualassault. As a legal term, definitions of sexual assault may differ depending on whichcountry you happen to be in, or even which part of which country (for example,both Australia and the United States have rape/sexual assault laws that vary bystate). The differences between such laws appear to have limited impact in termsof practical outcome, that is, convictions. But the differences in terminology tellsomething about the broader political trends in understandings of sexual assault.

So why does it matter whether we call a sexual violation a rape or a sexualassault? This debate is important for two reasons. First, some suggest that the

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official definitions of crimes like rape do not reflect the experience of all survivors,just those assaults that fit with our stereotypes. Second, rape cases are notoriouslydifficult to deal with in the criminal justice system, resulting in failure to secureconviction for many attackers. Some argue that these problems could be improvedby using the term sexual assault instead.

One problem with the term rape is that it is often gender specific. The crime ofrape originates from an era when men “owned” women, and therefore rape wasalmost a crime against a man’s property rather than against women as individuals.Many countries have retained a definition of rape that refers only to the penilepenetration of female victims by male perpetrators. This means that “rapelike”crimes such as nonconsensual sodomy are therefore seen as different from (andeven less serious than) the more stereotypical penile rape of women by men. In-cluding all “rapes” within one gender-neutral category of sexual assault could pro-mote equality between survivors (and between perpetrators’ sentences). However,others feel that as most victims of rape are women and most perpetrators are men,the gender specificity of “rape” is important, and therefore sexual assault shouldonly refer to other sexual violations.

The second problem with the category of rape is that it tends to focus on sexualintercourse, which can lead to victim blaming. In contrast, the term sexual assaultfocuses attention on the problem of sexual violence, drawing parallels with otherkinds of violent crime such as robbery. It is common for crimes of sexual assaultto be graded in terms of seriousness, with reference to the level of violence of thecrime. Some argue that this is a good thing because it allows a variety of kinds ofassault within one simple category to be recognized. Others feel this is a problem,because it suggests that some forms of sexual violation, such as date rape or sexualcoercion, are somehow less serious because they less commonly involve overt phys-ical force. The increasing popularity of the term sexual assault reflects an interna-tional trend toward seeing rape as a crime of violence, as gender neutral, and asthe perpetrator’s responsibility. However, in both practical and symbolic terms, thevalue of using sexual assault rather than rape remains contested, and the debatelooks set to continue for some time. See also: Prosecution; Rape Law; Rape Trials.

Suggested Reading: P.L.N. Donat and J. D’Emilio, “A Feminist Redefinition of Rape andSexual Assault: Historical Foundations and Change,” Journal of Social Issues 48.1 (1992):9–22; J. Gregory and S. Lees, Policing Sexual Assault (London: Sage, 1999).

RUTH GRAHAM

SEXUAL ASSAULT, DRUG-FACILITATED. The definition of “rape” specifiessexual activity that takes place when a person (female or male) is physically forced,verbally threatened, or under the influence of drugs that render him or her incapableof making a free decision or resisting a sexual assault. Acquaintance rape (date rapeis a subcategory) involves someone being forced to have sexual contact against hisor her will with a person previously known to the survivor. It is now a felony togive an unsuspecting person one of the date rape drugs with the intent of commit-ting a violent act, including rape, upon that person. The law-imposed penaltiesinclude fines and prison terms for importing or distributing more than one gram ofthese drugs. Despite the efforts of the criminal justice system at developing deter-rents, the use of date rape drugs appears to be increasing. While gammahydroxy-butyrate (GBH), Rohypnol, and ketamine are considered the primary date rape

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drugs, Ecstasy and alcohol (either alone or in combination with one of the otherdrugs) have been and continue to be used in cases of sexual assault by impairingthe judgment of the target. For example, women who use Ecstasy actually want tobe touched and held by partners who may have been complete strangers only 10minutes before the sexual contact.

The scenarios associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault have distinct patternswith respect to the players, the circumstances, and the scripts:

1. The targets include women alone (the most frequent situation), women with com-panions (who may also be drugged to prevent their intervention), and men aloneor with companions. In each case, the predator or predators assess the vulnerabilityof the target.

2. Most of the predators are men, alone or in groups.

3. The settings include bars, clubs, fraternity houses, private homes, cars, or any placewhere the act will not be easily discovered or interrupted.

The scenario generally follows a typical sequence with the perpetrator first makingovertures of friendship or efforts at seduction. Eventually, an open drink will beadulterated with one of the easily dissolvable, odorless, and tasteless date rapedrugs. The target will eventually develop symptoms of weakness and dizziness; thetiming depends on the specific drug and the dosage. The predator will then offerto drive the potential victim home or even to the hospital. The victim will experiencean 8- to 24-hour “blackout.” The only evidence of a crime may be bruises anddisarranged or missing clothing. The survivor may have a strong suspicion that asexual attack had occurred, but she (in most, but not all cases, the target of sexualassault is a woman) will have absolutely no memory of the event. The questionarises as to whether her memory could be restored through the use of hypnosis.The answer is a deafening “no.” If the survivor seeks medical attention, there willbe no evidence of the use of drugs. If she reports her suspicions to the schoolauthorities or the police, in all probability, nothing will happen because the survivorhas no evidence and may not know who was involved.

In data supplied by the Women’s Health and Counseling Center and by the Bu-reau of Justice Statistics, we find that 25 percent of college-aged women have eitherbeen raped or have survived an attempted rape. Eighty-four percent of the womenwho were raped knew their assailants. Although women from the ages of 16 to 24years are at the greatest risk of being raped, no one is completely safe. In a survey,1 in 12 male students had committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape.Eighty-four percent of the men, who had committed rape, stated that what theyhad done was definitely not rape. Only 27 percent of the women who were sexuallyassaulted perceived themselves rape victims. Seventy-five percent of the male stu-dents who committed rape and 55 percent of the female students involved in a rapesituation had been drinking alcohol, using drugs, or both. One third of the malesample stated that they would commit rape if they could get away without detec-tion. Twenty-five percent of the male respondents believed that rape was acceptableunder the following conditions: (1) if the woman asked the man to go out, (2) ifthe man paid for the date, and (3) if the woman agreed to go to the man’s roomafter the date. In addition, a predator may feel entitled to sex if he is invited to thewoman’s room, or if he thinks his status as an athlete or celebrity gives him specialrights. While it is not possible to eliminate all risk factors, there are behaviors thatwill reduce the danger. These include not putting oneself in high-risk situations and

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watching for warning signs. However, experienced predators know how to behaveso that the defenses of intended victims and others are not activated. At parties,stay with people who can be trusted. In addition, never drink from an open con-tainer.

There are several signs that drugs are being used in college dorms. For example,Visine bottles are used to store GHB. An “X” marked on the door of a dorm roomindicates that Ecstasy is available. Sometimes an extreme focus on weight controlby women students can indicate that club drugs that suppress appetite and cocaineare being used on the campus. Students may not see the use of club drugs as aproblem because many students believe that club drugs are not as dangerous ascocaine. See also: Campus Rape; Fraternities; Rape Statistics.

Suggested Reading: Robert J. Ascolese, Pathways to Recovery: The Psychology and Spiri-tuality of Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (New York: Recovery Assistance Foun-dation, 1995); Club Drugs.org, http://www.clubdrugs.org; Jaime Diaz, How Drugs InfluenceBehavior: Neurobehavioral Approach (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997); HaroldE. Doweiko, Concepts of Chemical Dependency, 5th ed. (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole,2002); John P. Morgan, “Designer Drugs,” in Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook,ed. Joyce H. Lowinson, Pedro Ruiz, Robert B. Millman, and John Langrod (New York:Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins, 1997); Partnership for a Drug-Free America, http://www.drugfreeamerica.org; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association’s NationalClearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, http://www.health.org.


SEXUAL COERCION. Sexual coercion is incorporated within the broader spec-trum of sexually abusive behaviors, from rape and sexual assault to sexual harass-ment and emotional blackmail. The concept of coercion does not rely on notionsof overt physical violence to define what counts as nonconsensual sexual contact.Instead, the focus is on freely given consent. Sexual coercion is therefore aboutmore subtle processes of gaining sexual access and includes more “everyday” be-haviors. And so because sexual coercion is a more everyday occurrence, it is harderto draw the line between behavior that is criminal and behavior that is simplyundesirable or unethical. At the root of the issue is how violence has been reliedupon to define consent.

From the 1970s onward, the feminist perspective has dominated many of thedebates around rape and sexual assault, because mainstream research has shownso little interest in the topic by comparison. The feminist perspective has been usefulbecause it showed that most victims are women and most perpetrators are men andlocated rape as one aspect of men’s violence toward women. Understanding sexualassault as part of a broader pattern was a powerful shift in political and criticalawareness. But it reinforced a problematic association between the seriousness ofsexual assault and the existence of physical violence.

The problem with focusing on violence is that while the traditional stereotype ofrape as physically violent reflects adequately some people’s experiences, it does notaccount for all nonconsensual sexual contact. The vast majority of rapes and otherunwanted sexual attentions are committed by someone the victim knows, wherethe use of physical violence is much less likely. For example, there are debates aboutthe extent to which rape takes place in society, because many rapes, such as daterape, do not fit the stereotype. Mary Koss, a key academic commentator on the

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prevalence of rape, argues that official rape statistics have consistently underesti-mated the number of rapes. This is because those collecting official data have useda narrow definition of rape, which may not include victims who were not physicallyforced because they were incapacitated. Discussion of the relationship between vi-olence and coercion is important because these terms define what counts as consentto sexual activities and therefore what counts as nonconsent.

In response to the focus on violence, there is a growing interest in sexual coercion,particularly in the United States. Research on sexual coercion typically focuses onunderstanding people’s everyday experiences of sexual consent that is not freelygiven. Many of these studies are associated with the study of U.S. college campuspopulations. A leading academic in the field is Charlene Muehlenhard, whose workgoes beyond consensus definitions of unacceptable sexual behavior to look at rel-atively “everyday” incidence of “normal” sexual behavior and the role of coercionin that context.

The move away from a focus on sexual violence toward sexual coercion repre-sents a more inclusive definition of unacceptable behaviors that are not necessarilygender specific. For example, using emotional blackmail to get someone to agreeto sexual intercourse is an option open to both men and women. Men as victimsare the minority, and female perpetrators are rare, but there is a need to accountfor the events where men are coerced and women are sexually coercive—whereconsent is not just an issue about threat of physical violence but a question ofmeaningful and honest communication about free choice. Some argue that this shifttoward a broader definition of sexually abusive behavior is problematic because itcriminalizes too much “normal” social behavior. Others may find it problematicthat the explicitly gendered nature of serious sexual assaults is less pronounced inthe more everyday sexual coercions like emotional blackmail. But it is increasinglyhard to justify talking about sexual assault and rape without also discussing therelevance of coercion to the concept of consent. See also: Campus Rape; Legislation,Sexual Harassment.

Suggested Reading: J.A. Allison and L.S. Wrightsman, Rape: The Misunderstood Crime(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993); P.Y. Martin and R.A. Hummer, “Fraternities and Rapeon Campus,” in Violence against Women: The Bloody Footprints, ed. P.B. Bart and E.G.Moran (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), 114–131; C.L. Muehlenhard and J.L. Schrag,“Nonviolent Sexual Coercion,” in Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime, ed. A. Parrottand L. Bechhofer (New York: Wiley, 1991), 115–128; C.L. Muehlenhard, S.C. Sympson,J.L. Phelps, and B.J. Highby, “Are Rape Statistics Exaggerated? A Response to Criticism ofContemporary Rape Research,” Journal of Sex Research 31.2 (1994): 144–146.

RUTH GRAHAM

SEXUAL DOUBLE STANDARD. Understanding the history of rape and sexualexploitation in the United States includes examining the role of the sexual doublestandard in our social and legal culture. From colonial times to the present, Amer-ican laws governing sexual crimes and family law have been shaped by genderprescriptions, and the sexual double standard is firmly imbedded in the larger crim-inal justice system.

The term sexual double standard suggests that women are held to a differentstandard than men and that their words and actions are questioned based on theirvirtue or lack of virtue. The notion of distrusting women’s words is particularly

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evident in rape cases across time. In colonial Connecticut, the magistrates focusedon the character of both parties, but as time went by, the focus of character shiftedentirely to the female, and the validity of women’s words became suspect. In short,if a woman failed to live up to the standards of female purity, many courts viewedher as a willing participant in illicit sex and not a victim of rape. Courts across theUnited States followed the same pattern by applying different standards of sexualbehavior to men and women. While men were allowed great latitude in acting outsexually, women who failed to protect their own virtue outside of marriage receivedlittle sympathy from the court system.

During the early twentieth century, courts continued to apply unequal standardsof morality based on gender. The rise of the juvenile courts system is a good ex-ample. As urbanization, industrialization, and economic growth transformed Amer-ican society, young people had more freedom to engage in illicit sex as communityand family controls changed. Moral and legal reformers sought to control juvenilesexual delinquency through state legal intervention and introduced reformatoriesand eventually a large juvenile court and correctional system. The court systemidentified female sex delinquents as a serious social problem and routinely investi-gated young girls’ sexual histories. In many cases judges ordered further actionsincluding the use of required compulsory physical examinations, treatment for ve-nereal disease, placement in correction facilities, or in extreme cases, forced steril-ization. Furthermore, these same courts labeled girls who found themselvespregnant, whether by choice or as rape victims, as sexual delinquents. In contrast,these very same courts did not require boys to describe their sexual histories or faceinstitutionalization for their sexual misconduct. Rape prosecutions were even lesslikely, depending on the character of the female party.

The sexual double standard can be seen in a number of examples across timeand speaks volumes to the role that social constructions of gender continue to havein measuring the guilt or innocence of female rape victims. See also: Gender Roles.

Suggested Reading: Cornelia Dayton Hughes, Women before the Bar: Gender, Law &Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);Mary E. Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexualityin the United States, 1855–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

DANELLE MOON

SEXUAL HARASSMENT. The federal government of the United States definessexual harassment as “any repeated or unwanted verbal or physical sexual ad-vances; sexually explicit derogatory statements; or sexually discriminating remarksmade by someone in the workplace which are offensive or objectionable to therecipient, give discomfort or humiliation, or interfere with the recipient’s job per-formance.” Sexual harassment is one of the serious causes of workplace violence.Behavior that begins as seemingly innocuous comments can eventually escalate torape and other forms of physical assault. The term workplace has been extendedbeyond corporate offices, factories, fieldwork outside the office, and public facilitiesto schools and universities, including military academies and other institutions oflearning. When the law was first formulated in 1964, sexual harassment was seenas an extension of sex discrimination with a male in a position of power and awoman in the more vulnerable role. Now the law has been redefined to cover same-sex relationships or a woman in the supervising role with a male subordinate. Both

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employees may be on similar levels of responsibility. In any case, the clear impli-cation is that the organization tolerates such behavior. Consequently, an employeemay believe that he or she is entitled to engage in harassing behavior since man-agement has a history of ignoring complaints.

Essentially, there are two categories of sexual harassment that can lead to chargesand perhaps even litigation: “quid pro quo” and “hostile environment.” In the caseof quid pro quo, the predator may begin by trying to seduce the target. If thatstrategy is unsuccessful, the predator’s behavior may become more threatening, orhe or she may use managerial power to promise a raise, a promotion, or specialtraining opportunities. In academic institutions, grades may become contingent onsexual favors. In the corporate world, there is always the threat of loss of employ-ment or other job actions. While the demands are frequently coupled with theenticement of job-related advantages, the message is implicitly one that involvesnegative consequences. Many targets are afraid to report incidents of sexual ha-rassment because they think that no one will believe them or that people will assumethat they contributed to the situation by their own behavior.

Behaviors defined as sexual harassment include indirect remarks, offensive touch-ing, active aggression without physical contact, such as phone calls and letters, andactual sexual abuse, including sexual propositions, unwelcome hugging, sexualtouching, and kissing. The aggressive nature of these acts is tantamount to assault.In many cases, the harasser begins to behave with such impunity that the targetfears to be alone or unprotected in places where the harasser might find him orher. A hostile environment where many employees find themselves in an atmosphereof loutish behavior including continuous salacious remarks, pornographic materialsin shared areas, and generally unpleasant physical behavior that remains unchal-lenged by management can lead to a class-action litigation by everyone in the work-place. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 states that job-related bias based on sex,disability, religion, or national origin will be punished in the same manner as casesbased on the race of the claimant. Punitive damages that are now covered by lawcan be very costly to individuals and employers accused of sexual harassment.Moreover, employers can no longer plead ignorance if they should have been awareof the situation. Organizations, including universities, must develop and post sexualharassment policies with stated consequences to the harasser. Expeditious investi-gation is part of the process. Employers are motivated to eliminate sexual harass-ment in the workplace since Supreme Court decisions have placed the responsibilityfor a hazard-free environment squarely on the shoulders of management.

In order to come to a fair decision with respect to a complaint, it is thought thatclaims of sexual harassment must be investigated to determine validity, the level ofseriousness of the event(s), and the appropriate consequences for those involved.Both human resources and the legal departments should be concerned. Everythingmust be carefully recorded. If the organization does not appear to be acting in anunbiased manner, any future litigation will result in a higher judgment against man-agement. Possible consequences include the following disciplinary actions against aknown harasser: oral and written warnings, reprimands, suspension, probation,lateral transfer, demotions, and discharge for cause. Redress of the claimant’s sit-uation is expected (e.g., a promotion once withheld should be given and unfairgrades should be changed).

Many survivors of sexual harassment are afraid to report the event(s) since theyfear retaliation and being blamed for the situation by their peers or families. If these

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incidents are not reported, however, the administration cannot take formal action.The targets of sexual harassment frequently make anonymous calls to counselingoffices and human resources departments asking for advice on how to handle anincident without making a formal report. It is extremely difficult to convince apredator to stop his or her behavior without the weight of the organization and itsremedies to deter further acts. In some areas of the world, sexual harassment maynot be recognized as a crime. In the United States, victims of sexual harassment areencouraged to tell someone in a position of authority immediately and keep a “pa-per trail” (record) of the events. If nothing comes of the report, experts adviseconsulting an attorney. See also: Legislation, Sexual Harassment.

Suggested Reading: Patricia Brownell and Albert R. Roberts, “Domestic Violence in theWorkplace,” in Handbook of Violence, ed. Lisa Rapp-Paglicci, Albert R. Roberts, and JohnWoldarski (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002); “Facts about Sexual Harassment,”http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html “Revised Sexual Harassment Guidance: Harassment ofStudents by School Employees, Other Students, or Third Parties,” Office for Civil Rights,http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/shguide/; Judith A. Waters, Robert I. Lynn, and Keith Mor-gan, “Workplace Violence: Prevention, Intervention Theory and Practice,” in Handbook ofViolence, ed. Lisa Rapp-Paglicci, Albert R. Roberts, and John Woldarski (New York: JohnWiley and Sons, 2002).

JUDITH A. WATERS AND DANIEL GROSS

SEXUAL MUTILATION. Sexual mutilation is the alteration or modification ofthe victim’s body before, during, or after a rape, which is different from “femalegenital mutilation.” In the former, the act is a deliberate demonstration of sexualsadism that is specific to each perpetrator and is culturally unacceptable; in thelatter, it refers to a cultural practice of alteration of the labia and clitoris and isaccepted by those cultures that practice it.

Examples of sexual mutilation abound. They date from antiquity and myth. Forexample, in ancient Greek mythology, Tereus raped Philomela, cut off her tongue,and imprisoned her so that she could not speak of the crime. Perhaps the best-known historic cases are those victims of Jack the Ripper. More recent perpetratorswere Theodore Bundy whose rape and killing sprees went from Florida to Utah(early 1970s), Christopher Wilder, who chose dark-haired beauty queens for hisvictims (1980s), Danny Rolling, “The Gainesville Murderer” (1990), and the sexualpredators who worked as a team, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris (late 1970s).

The methods used in mutilation are limited only by the imagination of the of-fender. Hammers, pliers, and electric cattle prods, wires, pins and needles, biting,whipping, burning, insertion of foreign objects into the rectum or vagina, pouringcaustic substances on the skin, bondage, amputation, asphyxiation to the point ofunconsciousness, application of electric shocks, and insertion of glass rods in themale urethra are some examples.

When sexual mutilation accompanies a rape, the victim is frequently killed. How-ever, mutilation after death occurs as well. When the victim is mutilated while alive,domination, infliction of pain, and suffering are important to the rapist. Sexualsadism has been seen as a persistent pattern of becoming sexually excited in re-sponse to another’s suffering. Perpetrators find the suffering of the victim sexuallyarousing.

Postmortem evidence sends a different message. Often the mutilation is symbolic

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or sends a message to investigators. In the case of Edward Gein, he mutilated thebodies of his victims and kept trophies. One woman was hung and eviscerated likelarge game. Jack the Ripper cut away nipples, vaginas, uteruses and abdominalorgans from his victims. Danny Rolling decapitated the head of one of his victimsand left it facing the door, anticipating the horror of the first observer of the crimescene.

Mutilation is not always of the genitals. Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norrisstabbed ice picks into the auditory meatus of young girls. They planned and re-hearsed each aspect of their rapes from modifying the inside of a van to practicingthe routes they would take after abducting their victims. Their choice was teenagers,one from each age group from 13 to 19. Theodore Bundy squeezed superglue ingirls’ eyes to render them sightless. During the rapes, he bit them on the buttocksand breasts.

In 1978, Lawrence Singleton raped, then hacked off the arms of a teenage run-away. Singleton was imprisoned but later released only to kill a woman. Dispositionof these offenders is fraught with controversy because so many of them repeat theirbehaviors once freed. See also: Foreign Object Rape; Serial Rape and Serial Rapists.

Suggested Reading: Patricia Cornwell, Portrait of a Killer (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons,2002); Robert Hazelwood, V.A. Park, Elliott Dietz, and Janet Warren, “The Criminal SexualSadist,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (February 1992), http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/leb/htm.

LANA THOMPSON

SEXUAL PREDATORS. A sexual predator, legally, is one who has previouslycommitted a violent sex crime and been found by a judge and jury to suffer a“mental abnormality” or “personality disorder” that makes him “likely to engagein predatory acts of sexual violence” (Revised Code of Washington). Florida Stat-utes defines sexual predators as “repeat sexual offenders, sexual offenders who usephysical violence, and sexual offenders who prey on children.” Because of his in-herent propensity to repeat the harmful acts, the predator remains a menace tosociety even after released from incarceration. Frequently, despite outrage and pro-test from previous victims and their families, he is released and reenters society onlyto commit a similar or more violent offense.

One of the most heinous examples of a sexual predator who escalated his modusoperandi was Earl Shriner, who, in 1990, after being released from prison, attacked,raped, and sexually mutilated a 7-year-old boy. Shriner, a 40-year-old white male,had a lengthy record that began at age 16, when he killed a 15-year-old girl, hisschoolmate. In his midtwenties, he kidnapped and assaulted two teenage girls. Al-though he was incarcerated for 10 years, authorities thought that he should not bereleased but instead committed to a state hospital. However, two factors precludedhis continued detention. Since he was not diagnosed mentally ill, a psychiatric hos-pital would not accept him, and since he did not commit any sexual offenses whiledetained, the institution could not extend his sentence. Obviously, while under lockand key, he did not have the opportunity to stalk and rape young victims.

The first attempt at legislation to deal with sexual predators was made in 1930with two considerations: the protection of society and rehabilitation for the offender

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by either removal from society and punishment or treatment (or both). In Minne-sota, if one was diagnosed as having a psychopathic personality, then that personcould be confined in a mental institution or “an asylum for the dangerously insane.”By 1940, both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Minnesota court found that defi-nition to be too vague because voyeurs, exhibitionists, and other nonpredatorybehaviors were being included in the sexual psychopath laws. The next 20 yearswitnessed a series of changes, and by the 1960s, 28 states had sex offender com-mitment laws. In some states, parole and probation were required after release asa way to keep track of the predators. Then, with the rise in civil rights in the late1960s, predators, too, were given protections. A reversal began with the right tocounsel, the right to be heard, to be confronted with witnesses against him, to cross-examine, and the right to offer his own evidence. The existing laws that requiredsentences of indeterminate hospitalization were challenged. Treatment became vol-untary rather than mandatory. By 1990, only 13 states had “sexual psychopath”laws.

One reason that the psychiatric profession supported the repeal of these laws wasthat the term sexual psychopath was neither medical nor legal but an “amalgam. . . that allowed treatment in a manner consistent with a guarantee of communitysafety” (Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry). In other words, the interventionneither changed the perpetrator nor prevented further offenses. Psychiatry had nodisease entity for such a person but could only classify the phenomena as a behav-ior.

The new legal term was the sexually violent predator, a person charged or con-victed of a sex crime and who has “a mental abnormality or disorder which makesthe person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence” (Lieb, 2). Thisallowed the state to detain an individual involuntarily after the sentence for theoffense expired until such time as the predator was deemed safe to be at large. Butthis act was challenged and in 1995 it was revised.

On May 17, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed Megan’s Law, named after aseven-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and murdered by a sexual predatorwho lived across the street. Soon after, Louisiana and other states enacted sexualpredator and sex offender registration and notification laws. While some jurists feelthis law causes humiliation and invasion of privacy for a person who has “servedhis time,” others feel this is a reasonable compromise between indeterminate incar-ceration and release of a dangerous person.

On March 5, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that notifying communities of sexoffenders information and specifically that of placing photos of sex offenders onthe Internet is not infringing on sex offenders’ rights, outlined in the Constitution.See also: Pedophilia; Serial Rape and Rapists.

Suggested Reading: Andee Beck, “The Little Boy: What Do We Need to Know,” TacomaNews Tribune, February 7, 1990, S9; Committee on Psychiatry and the Law, Psychiatry andSex Psychopath Legislation: The 30s to the 80s, report No. 98 (New York: Group for theAdvancement of Psychiatry, 1977), 861; Kristin Gordon, “Sex Offender Info Still Online,”Lancaster Eagle Gazette, March 6, 2003, http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/news/stories/20030306/topstories/1120684.html; Roxanne Lieb, “Washington’s Sexually ViolentPredator Law: Legislative History and Comparisons with Other States,” Washington StateInstitute for Public Policy, December 1996, http://www.wa.gov/wsipp.wagov/rptfiles/Wasexlaw.pdf; Donna D. Schram and Cheryl Darling Milloy, “Community Notification: A

234 SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES (STDs)

Study of Offender Characteristics and Recidivism,” Washington State Institute for PublicPolicy, October 1995, http://www.wa.gov/wsipp/crime/pdf/chrrec.pdf.

LANA THOMPSON

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES (STDs). See HIV/AIDS.

SLAVERY. The system of slavery has been a central feature of world history andis directly tied to the physical and cultural rape of different peoples across time. Inthe fifteenth century, European nations competed for new world markets andlaunched a new era of bondage by turning African slavery into a transatlantic busi-ness. The resulting greed and competition tore African men, women, and childrenfrom their native communities and forced the diaspora of slaves throughout theWestern world. The early slave traders largely focused on male slaves to fulfill thelabor demands of sugar, rice, and tobacco production. Once plantation ownersfirmly rooted slavery in the American colonies, the sex ratio between male andfemale slaves leveled out. This shift led to the formation of slave communities whereslave families suffered under a barbaric system of physical and sexual abuse.

Historians disagree over the political and economic rationale for the system ofAmerican slavery, yet there is little disagreement over the dehumanizing and op-pressive features of slavery and the formation of power relations that reinforcedunnatural bonds between whites and blacks that rested on the economic and re-productive labor of slaves. To fully appreciate the social conditions that fosteredthis sexual and reproductive exploitation, one must understand how gender andrace shaped Southern society as a whole. Both merged into Southern codes andcultural attitudes that grew dependent upon gender prescriptions, the dominanceof patriarchy, and the laws that governed domestic relations between husband andwife, parent and child, and slave and master. Gender prescriptions reveal a complexset of social relations in the Southern society grounded on patriarchal rule. BothSoutherners and Northerners promoted unequal relationships between men andwomen through the theory of the “Cult of True Womanhood.” This theory main-tained that white women were pure, pious, submissive, and dependent. Southernmen used this theory to justify their manhood and reinforced paternalism groundedon a violent code of honor. This same code of honor placed white women on apedestal, while consigning black women to a life of bondage and sexual exploita-tion. The sexual misconduct of white women was not treated lightly, particularlyif they engaged in illicit sex with black men. White female sexual misconduct dis-honored the reputation of the family, and therefore all male kin had an interest inpreserving female purity. Ironically, maintaining race purity became a central fea-ture of Southern law and served as a means to enforce sexual purity among whitewomen, while men’s sexual misconduct went unpunished as shown by the increasein the mulatto population.

In contrast to white women’s virtue, the female slave stereotype of “Jezebel” andthe history of forced reproduction tell the story of male sexual misconduct, sexualcoercion, and sexual violence. Many Southern whites believed that black women,like the biblical Jezebel, lacked self-control of their libidos and were the antithesisof the true white woman. This imagery of Jezebel exposes European and Americanperceptions formulated during and after contact with African culture. The natureof a female slave’s work in the rice, tobacco, and cotton fields often meant that

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they were semiclad to complete the work. Exposure to women’s bodies during slaveauctions and slave beatings reinforced the perceptions of promiscuity and imprintedthis stereotype in the minds of white society. As with all stereotypes, there is someelement of truth, but in the case of the female slave, she was coerced to give herbody for slave breeding and reproduction and in some cases became the mistressof her slave owner or entered the “Fancy Trade” of prostitution and concubinage.

Southern antebellum slaveholders shaped by a unique social system reinforcedthe sexual double standards for both white and black women. In reality, thesestandards, brought on by the exploitation and illicit sex of white men, createdmixed-race families, revealing the inherent flaws of Southern honor and laws gov-erning rape. At the same time, Southern rape laws reveal a systematic discriminationbased on gender, class, and race. These same laws provide a historical frameworkfor understanding the pervasiveness of the sexual double standards in rape casestoday.

Rape and property laws defined different levels of behavior, and the punishmentsmeted out varied in degree based on color. Southern courts punished blacks moreharshly than whites, thus exposing a dual system of justice and the contradictionsof a slave society. The enforcement of rape laws and definitions of property blendedtogether in a legal system reinforced by gender, class, and race stratifications.

Southern white men believed that black men were obsessed with white women.During the colonial period, black men convicted of rape could expect castration,and by the antebellum period the punishment increased to the death penalty. Theharshness of punishments against black rapists in part reflected white society’s ob-session with female sexuality and the view that it owned white women’s bodies andwould protect them as property. These same beliefs tied white men’s masculinityto family honor and white female purity. Rape not only dishonored the womanand entire household, it also challenged the racial and social order of Southernslave society.

Slavery created a dual and contradictory system at all levels. Southern law rein-forced the protection of white women as property, while justifying the sexual ex-ploitation of black women. White slaveholders held absolute power over their slavepopulation and could rape their slaves at will without fear of punishment. Thesystematic sexual exploitation of black female slaves and their mulatto offspringreveals a society weighted down by public and private violence. Rape laws did notapply or protect black female slaves from the abuses of their masters. Instead, thesewomen shouldered the double burden of their gender and race.

In contrast to white men’s experience, black men accused of raping black womenfaced punishment for assault and battery laws. In the case George v. State of Mis-sissippi (1859), the court overturned a death sentence of a convicted black maleslave on the basis that the law did not recognize rape between African slaves. Mas-ters, not the state, regulated sexual intercourse between slaves. In this case, thecourt ruled that the black male slave could be tried for assault and battery, regard-less of gender, and slaves lacked legal standing under common law. The Civil Warsharpened Southern views on sexual assault of black women, and for the first timelegal scholars promoted laws that protected slave women from rape. New rapecodes offered some protection to black women, but courts dispersed punishmentsunequally based on race. White men convicted of raping white women faced im-prisonment, whereas black men convicted of raping white women faced certaindeath. In contrast, men convicted of raping black women, whether free or slave,

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faced fines and punishments according to the courts’ discretion. Southern jurispru-dence punished rape offenders unevenly based on two separate legal standards cen-tered on race and gender. Black men and women were the double victims of asociety grounded on racism and sexual exploitation, while the court’s assessmentof white women’s virtue depended on their sexual purity. Judges could label womenwho had engaged in illicit sex as willing participants rather than victims and inturn, offer little protection from the court. In reflection, Southern antebellum lawsgoverning illicit sex and rape reveal an obsession with female sexuality and a generaldistrust of female rape victims; whether black or white, the sexual double standardprevailed.

The history of slavery and its concomitant sexual exploitation serves as a re-minder that past and present rape laws focus on female purity, limiting the effect-iveness of laws designed to protect women from continued sexual exploitation. Seealso: Race and Racism; Rape Law; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: Peter W. Bardaglio, Reconstructing the Household: Families, Sex, &the Law in the Nineteenth-Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,1995); Catherine Clinton, Tara Revisited: Women, War, & the Plantation Legend (NewYork: Abbeville Press, 1995); Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in thePlantation South (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985).

DANELLE MOON

SODOMY. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal tocriminalize the act of sodomy between consenting adults. The Court’s decision,Lawrence et al. v. Texas, overturned the centuries-old traditional basis of the laws,which criminalized nonprocreative sex. It also set a precedent to halt the use ofsodomy statutes to stigmatize same-sex relations—a trend that had gained momen-tum over the past quarter-century in the United States. The Supreme Court decision,however, clearly supported the ongoing prosecution of nonconsensual acts of sod-omy, including rape and sexual assault.

The definition of sodomy, which formed the basis of the American laws, can betraced to the time of the reign of England’s King Henry VIII. Originally, it wasdefined as anal intercourse between a man and a woman, between two men, orbetween humans and beasts. The sixteenth-century frameworks of both the eccle-siastical and civil laws designated these acts as sex for nonprocreative purposes andthereby synonymous with both a sin against God and a crime. The term sodomyitself derives from the story of the kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah. Accordingto the Old Testament Bible (Genesis 18–19), both kingdoms were completely de-stroyed because of the wickedness of all the male inhabitants, who were all deemedas sinners against God.

Over the centuries, the definition evolved to include all sexual acts outside ofprocreative sex—namely, both anal and oral sex. Therein, the precedents from theearly Judeo-Christian religious, ethnic, and moral beliefs became the basis of thesodomy laws in early colonial America. Many of these continued to the presentday, with the notions of sin and immorality being implicated in the laws. The stateof Rhode Island, for instance, aptly reflected these sentiments in entitling their leg-islation as an “Abominable and Detestable Crime against Nature.” From the found-ing of America until the latter decades of the twentieth century, the sodomylegislation was only sporadically enforced and most commonly ignored if the par-

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ticipants were consenting adults having sexual relations in private. However, theLawrence decision, and the position of many activist groups, cites that the lawshave been used in recent decades to stigmatize and criminalize same-sex couplesand sexual relations. The Supreme Court decision is thereby important as it strikesdown the use of the legislation to criminalize sodomy for moral reasons or tostigmatize same-sex couples. Right-to-privacy, gay rights, and international humanrights lobbyists applauded the ruling of the Court.

Lawrence stressed the importance of using the laws to address the continuingscenarios where sodomy is a criminal act. This includes nonconsensual sodomy,sexual assault, coerced sodomy, and other forms of rape. Sodomy with minors,whose youth legally renders them as incapable of providing consent, is also outsideof the law. Some prosecutors suggest that the charge of sodomy is levied when thereis insufficient evidence to garner a conviction on the more comprehensive chargesof sexual assault or rape.

The Supreme Court ruling clearly delineated the current interpretation of theboundaries between legal and criminal sodomy. However, the religious associationwith immorality and sin still continues in the popular belief system of many Amer-icans. Influential religious organizations and structures, such as the Vatican, con-tinue to uphold their opposition to all nonprocreative sexual acts. Therefore,criminal charges for bona fide sodomy, such as in a rape or in sex with minors,continues to elicit strong sentiments and public opinion, beyond the physical trag-edy of the assault, from those who view the act as sinful, immoral, and criminal.See also: Legislation, Illegal Sex Acts.

Suggested Reading: Richard Godbeer, “ ‘The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, andDesire in Colonial New England,” William and Mary Quarterly 52.2 (1995): 259–286;David C. Nice, “State Deregulation of Intimate Behavior,” Social Science Quarterly 69.1(1988): 203–211; Bert F. Oaks, “ ‘Things Fearful to Name’: Sodomy and Buggery inSeventeenth-Century New England,” Journal of Social History 12.2 (1978): 268–281.

LAURIE JACKLIN

SOUTHERN RAPE COMPLEX. The American South’s near-hysterical fear ofblack men as rapists of white women, often referred to as the “rape complex” or“rape myth,” has been one of the most salient aspects of race relations in thatregion since the late nineteenth century. Such fears, imagined and irrational, hadlittle basis in reality. Regardless, a virtual obsession among southern whites aboutthe sexual danger black men posed to white women proved to be a powerful toolof racial control and dominance, effectively helping to deny black men access topolitical, economic, and social equality, while increasing white women’s dependenceon their men folk for protection.

The rape complex has long intrigued scholars of the American South. For muchof the twentieth century, sociologists, psychologists, physicians, and historians haveanalyzed the white South’s preoccupation with black male sexuality. Once viewedas a universal and timeless aspect of southern society, white fears of black rapewere believed to have been a direct legacy of slavery. Early analysts of this phe-nomenon, heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic teachings of Sigmund Freud,claimed that slaveholding white men constructed an imaginary black rape threat toassuage their own guilt about sexually exploiting slave women. Native southernerand social critic Wilbur J. Cash in a seminal work, Mind of the South (1941), who

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is largely credited with coining the term “rape complex,” also cited the region’sinfatuation with the notion of pure white womanhood as contributing to ideasabout a black rape threat. The symbol of virtue, honor, and purity, white womenthus were “desexed” in the minds of many whites. The exaggerated purity andostensible passionlessness of white womanhood stood in contrast to the hypersexualand savage black man.

Historians found these Freudian explanations of the southern rape complex per-suasive and borrowed heavily from them in historical treatments of the topic. Fore-most, Winthrop Jordan offered the first in-depth historical insight into the complexrelationship between sexual ideology and race in his pathbreaking study of earlyrace relations, White Over Black (1968). White American perceptions about blacksexuality, he argued, stemmed from early English contact with Africans in Africa.Partial nudity, gossip about black male genitalia, and the practice of polygamyfueled racist notions about bestiality and licentiousness in Africans, which carriedover to African American slaves.

White stereotypes about black sexuality thus played an important role in thedevelopment of the rape complex. Whites believed blacks were innately immoraland uncivilized, therefore more susceptible to “natural” impulses, including sex.Recent historical works, however, have suggested that while colonial and antebel-lum whites tended to view blacks as more passionate and even promiscuous, whitefears of black rape did not emerge until well after slaves had been emancipated,thus shifting the origins of the rape complex to the late nineteenth century. Notuntil the late 1880s did the white South seem to become gripped by fears of blackrape. White southerner Philip Alexander Bruce is believed to have been the first topresent the “problem” of the “black rapist” to a large readership in 1889. Whatfollowed in print and speeches was a veritable flood of rabid diatribes about blackmen’s propensity to rape white women, accompanied by ominous predictions forthe white South if the black man’s urges were not held in check. Racial segregationand disfranchisement of black men were thus served up as necessary to protect theregion’s white females. Turn-of-the-century southern politicians quickly gauged thepolitical hay they could reap by employing the rhetoric of the “black-beast-rapist.”On the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1907, for example, Senator Benjamin Tillman ofSouth Carolina provocatively described the state of siege under which southernwomen lived, fearful of lurking black men whose breasts pulsated “with the desireto sate their passions upon white maidens and wives.” The father of three daugh-ters, Tillman explained he would rather find any one of them “killed by a tiger ora bear” and retain her virginity rather than suffer the fate of being “robbed of thejewel of her womanhood by a black fiend.”

Political rants about the “black-beast-rapist” were shored up by published “sci-entific” studies in various fields that set out to examine and quantify the “Negrorape problem.” In 1896, Frederick L. Hoffman, a statistician employed by the Pru-dential Insurance Company, published a demographic study that purported to showincidence of rape by blacks wildly out of proportion to their numbers in society.Hoffman blamed innate sexual immorality, a propensity for crime, and a tendencyfor blacks to “misconstrue personal freedom into personal license.” Physicians alsoweighed in on the debate about the “new Negro crime.” One medical study tracedthe proneness of black men to rape white women to the “hereditary influence” ofAfrican ancestors, the Ashantee warrior who had been accustomed to knocking hisprospective bride with a club and then dragging her into the woods.

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Images of black sexual predators were especially bountiful on the pages of fictioncomposed by turn-of-the-century native white southerners caught up in the “LostCause” mentality, the defensive posturing taken by many after the Civil War thathailed the Confederate cause as honorable and glorious. Using the Reconstruction-era South as the stage, southern novelists used the pen to attack federal Reconstruc-tion policies, notably those granting blacks political equality. Empowered with new-found political rights, these authors wrote, black men now set their sights on “socialequality,” the right to take white women as wives and lovers. The most successfulof these novels was Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman (1905), which director D.W.Griffith transformed into Birth of a Nation, the nation’s first major motion pictureepic. The denouement of the novel is a scene in which an innocent, young whitegirl is sexually assaulted by a bestial ex-slave. The stereotype of the black rapistthat inhabited the pages of southern fiction, and was later more widely consumedby theater and movie audiences, became indelibly etched on the minds of Americansand appeared to validate the claims of twentieth-century southerners who sought(invented) historical justification for their own social attitudes and behavior, in-cluding racial segregation, disfranchisement, and lynching.

While endemic throughout the South by the turn of the twentieth century, imagesof black rapists did not go unchallenged. African American activists understood theconnection between the white perception about the black sexual threat and thespasms of lynching that punctuated parts of the South well into the 1920s. FrederickDouglass, for one, publicly implied what most blacks instinctively knew: that theallegation of black rape was a ruse offered up to rationalize mob murder. Otherssuggested that consensual relations between black men and white women precipi-tated allegations of rape. Alex Manly, editor of the Wilmington (NC) Sentinel,claimed charges of black rape grew out of attempts by white women to cover upclandestine affairs across the race lines. No one was more outspoken about the“racket” of black rape than antilynching advocate Ida B. Wells. Like Manly, Wellsattributed many accusations of black-on-white rape to black men betrayed by theirwhite lovers who, fearing the scorn of neighbors and family, cried rape.

While historians are divided on the causes of the southern rape complex, mostagree that something unique to the 1890s is responsible. The 1890s was, of course,the nadir of race relations in America, when the most vitriolic forms of racismemerged and when the most devastating manifestations of racism became institu-tionalized. Black political power was certainly center stage as fusionist politicsthreatened to craft interracial political coalitions. The threat of interracial, intraclassalliances, some say, was the impetus for southern Democrats to appeal to the pro-tection of white womanhood as a ploy to unify whites of all classes. Women’shistorians interject that the “rape complex” had a devastating impact on whitewomen as well as black men. The encroachment of industrialization into the ruralSouth disrupted traditional gender and family roles in the South and gave rise to anew class of working women who increasingly flouted patriarchal domination. Thecreation of a black “bogeyman” encouraged white women to depend on their whitemen. Thus, the rape myth not only served the political ends of white supremacistsbut reined in wayward white women as well.

Ample evidence testifies to the continuing staying power of the rape complex andto its resilience as a political issue well into the twentieth century and beyond theborders of the South. Studies of the American criminal justice system reveal, forexample, that black men convicted of raping white women receive more severe

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sentences than for raping black women and more severe sentences than white rapistswhose victims are black or white. Fears of black rape also infused the 1988 presi-dential election when a George Bush campaign ad attempted to portray Democraticnominee Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The ad criticized a prison furloughprogram in Massachusetts supported by Governor Dukakis, citing the case of WillieHorton, an African American who committed an assault and a rape in Marylandafter failing to return to prison on his weekend pass. A mug shot of Horton, somesay, was designed to play on white fears of the savage black man as rapist of whitewomen. The following year, racial and political tensions were stretched taut in NewYork City when a group of racist white teens in the Bensonhurst section attackedand killed a 16-year-old black youth, Yusef Hawkins, in part because some mis-takenly believed he was in the Italian American neighborhood to visit a white girl.The rape complex, while it has clearly diminished in potency and pervasiveness inthe early twenty-first century, nonetheless continues to shape the contours of Amer-ican race relations. See also: Interracial Rape; Rape-Lynch Scenario.

Suggested Reading: Wilbur J. Cash, Mind of the South (1941; reprint, New York: VintageBooks, 1991); George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate onAfro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UniversityPress, 1971); Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “ ‘The Mind That Burns in Each Body’: Women, Rape,and Racial Violence,” in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, ed. Ann Snitnow,Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983); Win-throp D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812(1968; reprint, New York: W.W. Norton, 1977); Ida B. Wells, On Lynchings (reprint, Salem,NH: Ayer, 1991); Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in theAmerican South since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).

DIANE MILLER SOMMERVILLE

STATUTORY RAPE. Statutory rape is sexual intercourse with an unmarried per-son who is under the “age of consent.” That age ranges from 14 to 18 across theUnited States, although in most states it is 16. As the crime rests solely on the ageof the victim, force is not required. The laws are supposed to protect young peoplefrom engaging in potentially coercive sex, which may not be recognized as meetinga legal definition or popular perception of forcible rape, before they are physicallyor emotionally ready. As such, they are often used to prosecute the abuse of youngchildren and teens. But their wording also allows the prosecution of consensualsexual relationships between any underage person and any other person if they arenot married to each other.

During the colonial period, the age of consent was usually 10 or 12. But in thelate nineteenth century, an alliance of organizations such as the Women’s ChristianTemperance Union, suffragists, and some conservative religious groups and work-ingmen’s organizations lobbied to have the age raised to 16 or 18. Male legislatorscomplied but at the same time made prosecutions more difficult. Some states re-quired the female victim to be able to prove she was a virgin at the time of thecrime. Others allowed perpetrators to claim that they had made a “mistake of age”and thought the female older than she was.

In the 1970s, as part of a nationwide effort to change forcible rape laws, feministswere successful in most states in having these two stipulations repealed. They also

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lobbied for differential penalties for the crime, depending on the ages of the victimand the perpetrator; generally, the younger the victim, the more severe the penalty.

Two other types of changes did not go uncontested. First, the laws were made“gender neutral.” While originally they prosecuted a male who had sex with anunderage female, as amended the laws can prosecute any person who has sex withany underage person. Second, while originally the laws stated only that the victimbe under a certain age, feminists lobbied for “age spans” that required that theperpetrator be a certain number of years older than the victim. These spans varyfrom two to six years across the states that adopted them but are generally set atthree or four years so that teens close in age are not prosecuted.

Radical feminists believed that gender-neutral language and age spans would de-tract from their concern that males were always the more powerful party in het-erosexual relationships, even if they were the younger party. Religiousconservatives, with a more traditional view of gender roles, felt that only malesshould be punished and also wanted a perpetrator who fell within an age span tostill be punished so as to send the message that nonmarital sex was always wrong.Sex radical feminists, as well as gay and lesbian groups, feared that gender-neutrallaws might be used disproportionately against homosexuals and also felt that agespans did little to counter the laws’ invasion of sexual privacy.

In the 1990s, renewed attention was given to statutory rape laws as the U.S.welfare system was revamped. Congress exhorted the states to prosecute the crimemore effectively, so as to deter teen pregnancy and thereby lower the number ofpeople dependent on welfare. While many states increased prosecutions, it is de-batable whether such action would lower the welfare caseload; only about 1 percentof public assistance recipients are underage teens with children.

Given all of the debates over the laws’ purposes and over who should be pros-ecuted, their implementation sometimes undercuts their stated purpose of protectingthe young and vulnerable. First, if someone underage is married, his or her sexualactivity is not illegal regardless of the character of his or her relationship. Second,some states still retain the “mistake of age” defense, so that young people whoappear older or try to act older are outside the law’s protection. Third, some statesstill allow the prosecution of a perpetrator the same age as or younger than thevictim. Fourth, an underage person cannot stop a prosecution by claiming that heor she felt that the activity was consensual. Fifth, males in committed relationshipswith underage females may have to register as sex offenders and thus be barredfrom seeing their partners, as well as from approaching day care centers or schoolplaygrounds at which some of them have children.

The question remains as to how one can effectively protect children and teensfrom sexual abuse while at the same time allowing consensual sexual activity to gounprosecuted. See also: Child Rape; Rape Law.

Suggested Reading: Leigh Bienen, “Rape III: National Developments in Rape Reform Leg-islation,” Women’s Rights Law Reporter 6.3 (Spring–Summer 1980): 170–213; CarolynCocca, Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Laws in the United States (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 2004); Michelle Oberman, “Turning Girls into Women: Re-evaluating Modern Statutory Rape Law,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 85(1994): 15–78; Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing AdolescentFemale Sexuality in the United States, 1885–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina

242 STEINEM, GLORIA

Press, 1995); Frances Olsen, “Statutory Rape: A Feminist Critique of Rights Analysis,” TexasLaw Review 63 (1984): 387–432.

CAROLYN E. COCCA

STEINEM, GLORIA (1934– ). Feminist organizer and writer, Gloria Steinem wasborn in Toledo, Ohio, to Leo Steinem and Ruth Nuneviller Steinem. After her 1956graduation from Smith College, Steinem received a fellowship to study in India,where she absorbed grassroots organizing skills from followers of Gandhi. In 1960she moved to New York City where she worked for Help! magazine and freelancedfor Life, Esquire, Glamour, and other publications. Steinem cofounded New Yorkmagazine in 1968, serving as its political columnist until 1972. She came to thewomen’s movement in 1969 after attending a meeting of the Redstockings, a radicalfeminist group, during which women described their experiences with abortion. Herconsciousness raised, Steinem embraced feminist activism. In 1971–1972, she andothers founded Ms. magazine, a groundbreaking publishing venture that drew at-tention to women’s issues.

Steinem became extraordinarily influential; in addition to Ms., her regular ap-pearances on national television as well as constant lecture tours on college cam-puses and elsewhere brought the women’s movement to wide popular audiences.An adept organizer, Steinem was also instrumental in founding the NationalWomen’s Political Caucus, Voters for Choice, the Women’s Action Alliance, theMs. Foundation for Women, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women.

Since the 1970s she has dedicated her career to writing, editing, fund-raising,public speaking, and organizing on behalf of feminist issues, receiving numerousawards for her writing and public service. Over the course of her career, Steinemhas written and spoken widely on violence against women, including childhoodsexual abuse; date rape/acquaintance rape and marital rape; the relationship be-tween rape and pornography; and rape as a war crime. From its inception, Ms.magazine has published regularly on these topics. Two publications were particu-larly pathbreaking and controversial. When porn actress Linda Marchiano (LindaLovelace) asserted that the film Deep Throat depicted her own rape, Steinem wasamong the first to publicize the story, writing “The Ordeal of Linda Lovelace,” theMay 1980 cover story, which drew attention to relationships between rape andpornography. In the 1980s, the magazine initiated what became a highly conten-tious discussion of rape on college campuses. Building on Karen Barrett’s September1982 article “Date Rape: A Campus Epidemic?” Ms. invited Kent State Universitypsychologist Mary P. Koss to collaborate with the magazine to study the project,part of the magazine’s effort during these years to bring feminist scholarship topopular audiences. With support from the National Institute for Mental Health aswell as the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape, and carriedout under Koss’s direction, the project was the most far-reaching study on patternsof sexual assault at institutions for higher learning at that time. The results, reportedin the landmark 1988 study I Never Called It Rape: The Ms Report on Recognizing,Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape, became the source for theoften quoted and contested figure that one in four women have been victims ofsome form of sexual assault. Steinem’s papers as well as the records of the Women’sAction Alliance are housed at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College; Ms.magazine records are held by both the Sophia Smith Collection and the Schlesinger

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Library. See also: Feminist Movement; Rape History in the United States: TwentiethCentury.

MARLA MILLER

STIGMA. Rape stigma is the negative perception of a rape survivor’s reputation,manifested in insinuations or openly expressed misconceptions that the assault wassomehow “invited” by the victim’s behavior.

Stigma normally takes three common forms: self-stigma, family stigma, and socialstigma. Self-stigma is the tendency of many victims to blame themselves for theassault. It is a deep emotional condition with tragic effects on the person’s qualityof life, self-esteem, and readiness to have a regular sexual relationship. Not infre-quent is family stigma, an often hostile attitude of family members who blame orforce the victim to keep silent. An early example of family stigma is described inthe Bible, in the story of Tamar, raped by her half brother and later told by herbrother to hide the truth. Social stigma is the reproach on the victim’s reputationconveyed in the general feeling that the victim’s behavior contributed to the inci-dent. Rape stigma is a pervasive and persistent phenomenon whose peculiarity be-comes evident when one realizes the difference between the attitude toward rapesurvivors and that reserved for victims of nonsexual assaults. Whereas the societyin general is strongly compassionate toward persons crippled by drunk drivers, forexample, the sexual element of rape automatically raises doubts as to the victim’srole in a rape.

An especially unfortunate consequence of stigma is that victims are further trau-matized and have few ways to break the cycle of injustice. According to variousestimates, due to the fear of social stigma, rape is a dramatically underreportedcrime. When reported, many rapists go unpunished, as their defense attorneys cap-italize on the victim’s self-stigma and manage to convince the grand jury that thesexual encounter was consensual. Victims often avoid being named in media cov-erage. Often advised against speaking out, rape survivors let themselves be shamedinto silence, which according to some experts only adds insult to injury. Silencedoes little to resolve the emotional distress a raped person has been subjected to.Speaking out is not easy either, as those who choose this option are more or lessopenly accused of using the incident with a view to fame. But as advocates ofspeaking out argue, because rapists often threaten to kill their victims, going publicis a way to break the rapists’ power over their victims. See also: “Blaming theVictim” Syndrome; Rape Counseling; Rape Crisis Centers; Tribal Customs andLaws.

Suggested Reading: K.K. Baker, “Sex, Rape, and Shame,” Boston University Law Review79 (1999): 663–716; T.R. Miller et al., Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look (Wash-ington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1996).

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

SURVIVORS. Throughout history and around the world, people have been rapedby strangers, dates, family members, multiple attackers, and gangs. They have beentrafficked and forced into prostitution or sexual slavery. Women have been forcedto become wives and concubines. Rape survivors are female and male, adults and

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children, homosexuals and heterosexuals. They endure physical and psychologicalconsequences of their ordeal for months or years, if not a lifetime.

Sexual crime is an affront to the person. Some can get over the sex act, but thesense of dehumanization remains. Survivors are devastated by the sense of losingtheir personal power and ability to make choices. Psychological consequences canbe severe. They can include posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, panicattacks, constant fear, sleep disorders, nightmares, flashbacks, denial, problemsforming relationships, intimacy difficulties, constant anger, emotional shutdown,debilitating self-blame or shame, overeating or loss of appetite, substance abuse,and more. Survivors may lose all sense of being safe. Collectively, these reactionsare called rape trauma syndrome. Symptom intensity may increase if survivors re-visit the rape scene or a similar situation.

Some individuals are more susceptible to certain psychological responses thanothers. Today, almost half of date rape survivors tell no one of their ordeal, therebyincreasing the potency of any physical and psychological problems. But support iscritical. For instance, posttraumatic stress disorder can be minimized, even pre-vented, if victims receive clinical help soon after rape.

Physically, survivors may suffer mild to severe injuries, usually from being chokedor beaten. Injuries most often include bruising of skin, vaginal walls, or cervix,severe bleeding, tearing of the anus, and swelling of the labia. There may also bepregnancy, venereal disease, or HIV/AIDS.

Sociologically, there is lasting stigma, often not of the victim’s own making. So-ciety often places a stigma on rape victims that is hard to escape. Rape becomes acomponent of a person’s identity for life.

Survivor recovery depends heavily upon the amount and quality of support fromlaw enforcement, medical and rape crisis communities, family, and friends. Psychi-atric help may be needed beyond ongoing counseling. Friends and family shouldtake the rape seriously, listen, and verbally praise victims for surviving.

Survivors may be comforted by having a friend at their side during police re-porting. Counselors from rape crisis centers are familiar with police procedures andcan attend interviews to support survivors. Survivors may request to speak to anofficer of the same sex, but one may or may not be available.

If survivors injure or kill an attacker, feelings of guilt may occur. Some individualsfeel guilty for not having fought harder. Often, survivors question whether or notthey are responsible for the rape. They may ask, “Do I look like I want to beraped?” They attribute elements of fault to themselves. It is important to rememberthat guilt lies with the rapist. Anything individuals do to remain alive during attackshould be respected.

With an under 50 percent arrest rate for reported rapes, it is little wonder thatconstant fear, which plagues the majority of survivors, continues long term. Symp-toms of posttraumatic stress can surface years after the incident.

Rape prevention or other self-defense classes are one method for survivors totackle fears, build confidence, and regain a sense of control. Some survivors turnto community or political action as another method to find empowerment and helpprevent rapists from consuming the lives of others. Whatever the methods, findingoutlets, support, empowerment, and relief from psychological trauma is imperativeto the recovery and well-being of survivors. See also: Rape Counseling.

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Suggested Reading: Dianna Daniels Booher, Rape: What Would You Do If . . . ? (NewYork: Julian Messner, 1981); Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report onRecognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape (New York: Harper &Row, 1988).

ELIZABETH JENNER

T

TAILHOOK CONVENTION OF 1991. An event synonymous with sexual ha-rassment within the U.S. military, the Tailhook affair was a sex scandal namedafter the 1991 convention of the Tailhook Association at the Las Vegas HiltonHotel. The Tailhook Association is a private organization devoted to supportingU.S. Naval Carrier Aviation and ensuring a continued strong national defense. Theassociation comprises aviators on active duty, as well as reserve and retired navyand marine corps pilots, defense contractors, and others.

During the association’s 1991 convention, naval aviators were reported to havemolested, to varying degrees, women officers and nonmilitary personnel. Details ofthe incidents were revealed following lawsuits filed by Lieutenant Paula Coughlinand other women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by intoxicated pi-lots. Among the most notorious activities associated with the scandal was “thegauntlet.” In each of the three nights of the 1991 convention, in a particular hallwayof the hotel, drunken male officers encircled women and grabbed at their breasts,crotches, and buttocks, attempting to strip off their clothes. In total, at least 26women were forced to run the gauntlets, and it was revealed that a significantnumber of women did so freely and knowingly, some even baring their breasts.According to various witnesses questioned in the course of the investigation, poke-and-grab gauntlets had been a Tailhook tradition for at least 15 years. It was com-mon for intoxicated males to run nude past onlookers, an activity described bywitnesses as “streaking,” and to publicly expose their genitals, which is commonlyreferred to as “ballwalking.”

The Tailhook case is significant for its role in exposing the U.S. military’s fre-quently sexist attitude toward women, which became evident in the navy’s reluc-tance to conduct a viable investigation into cases of sexual harassment. Accordingto an independent report by Deputy Inspector General Derek J. Vander Schaaf,investigators purposely blocked the investigation and were said to make untowardremarks about women’s role in the military.

The inadequacies of the investigation through regular navy channels and an ear-

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lier dismissal of her complaints prompted Lt. Paula Coughlin to bring the case tothe court. She sued the Tailhook Association, the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, and theHilton Hotels Corporation for failing to provide adequate security for guests. OnOctober 24, 1994, U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro read the verdict, finding thedefendants guilty of negligence.

The shock that accompanied the scandal prompted the navy to confront theproblem of sex abuse. It was recognized that the Tailhook incident resulted fromboth a failure in leadership and a navy culture indulgent toward sexual coercion.To rectify the situation, sensitivity training was proposed, along with a zero-tolerance plan that stipulated, among other things, that sexual offenders and “seniorofficers who question the role of women in the military” be summarily dismissedfrom duty. Additionally, an initiative was proposed to enhance professional op-portunities for women.

These reforms were introduced amid protests from military members whoclaimed the affair had been blown out of proportion and that the measures takenmay have been motivated by opportunism rather than commitment to the military.This point was based on evidence that a large number of female personnel appearedto have freely participated in the Tailhook events and, indeed, denied feeling vic-timized. Furthermore, it was pointed out that there existed the possibility that ca-reers could be destroyed unfairly, based on mere suspicion of sexual impropriety.Such was the case of one commander who was denied promotion in 1995 on thegrounds that he was in Las Vegas at the time of the 1991 Tailhook Convention,even though he proved he had not been in any way implicated in the scandal.Finally, the suicide of Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda, who felt hounded by theaccusers, had perhaps the most sobering effect on the Tailhook whistleblowers.

The Tailhook affair had consequences for the Tailhook Association as well. Afterthe navy withdrew its official support of the organization and many of its membersleft its ranks, the Tailhook Association had no option left but to introduce measuresprohibiting sexual harassment. When the organization was once again accused ofsimilar cases of misconduct at its 2000 convention, a navy investigation found noevidence to support the allegations and cleared the Tailhook Association of anywrongdoing. See also: Alcohol.

Suggested Reading: Jack Kammer, “Recovering from a Tailspin,” Reason Magazine (Jan-uary 1994); Derek J. Vander Schaff, Tailhook 91—Review of the Navy Investigations, reportreleased by the Department of Defense, September 1992; Tailhook Association, http://www.tailhook.org/.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT MOVEMENT. Take Back the Night is an event de-signed to promote awareness of sexual violence against women and to assert thatsexual violence, or violence of any sort, will not be tolerated in our communities.Take Back the Night protests rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and anyacts of physical brutality. These events are meant to empower women to take astand against violence and refuse to be victimized.

The first Take Back the Night took place in Europe in the early 1970s, and thefirst large-scale Take Back the Night in the United States took place in San Franciscoin 1978. As its focus was primarily to rally against pornography and demand streetsafety, more than 5,000 marchers demonstrated at night in San Francisco’s por-

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nography strip, blocking traffic and chanting slogans such as, “No more profits offwomen’s bodies.”

Today’s Take Back the Night events are primarily local events organized by col-leges and universities or women’s organizations. Composed of rallies and/ormarches, many Take Back the Nights occur in April, which is Sexual Assault Aware-ness Month. The precise format of each Take Back the Night varies. Many beginin the early evening with a march through a highly populated area, with participantscarrying signs and chanting slogans such as, “Survivors Unite / To Take Back theNight” and “Join Together / Free Our Lives / We Will Not Be Victimized.” Asurvivor of sexual violence or councilor from a rape crisis center may give a speechon date rape, childhood sexual abuse, or other relevant topics. A speak-out, wherewomen read poems, tell of their own assaults, or request a moment of silence,allows participants to share their experiences with sexual violence. Many Take Backthe Night events end with a candlelight vigil and an exhortation to confront theissue of sexual violence every day in one’s actions, speech, and thoughts.

Some Take Back the Night events limit participation to women only, asking mento offer support by giving a donation or providing child care. Organizers of theseevents argue that Take Back the Night is a time for women to stand in solidarityto reclaim their bodies and the streets without the help or “protection” of men.Their critics argue that restricting the event to women excludes the group it shouldbe addressing—men—and alienates those men who do want to lend their support.Regardless, Take Back the Night provides an important means of discussing rapeand other sexual violence and decrying its prevalence in our communities. See also:New York Radical Feminists (NYRF).

Suggested Reading: “Take Back the Night,” Campus Outreach Services, 2002, http://www.campusoutreachservices.com/resources/tbtnhistory.htm.

ROBIN E. FIELD

THEATER. Since the times of the ancient Greeks, plays have been written aboutvictims of rape. Many societies that produced such plays understood rape and itsconsequences in very different ways, and punishments for rape in these plays takemany different forms. In consequence, the plays provide valuable insights into thevalues of these societies. Many plays begin after the rape has occurred and presentthe victims’ lives, the lives of their children, and the lives of the men who rapedthem. Plays in which a rape is attempted are relatively common. Plays in which arape actually occurs are quite rare.

For the Greeks and Romans, calling an act of sexual violence rape depended onwhether the victim was male or female, a citizen, or a slave. Rape was usuallydefined as a crime against a male citizen’s property, not as an act of violence againstanother human being. Early Greek dramas of the classical period often treat thesubject of rape in the context of war. The victims are generally women and childrenenslaved by the victorious enemy. The best known examples deal with the TrojanWar and its aftermath, such as Euripides’s The Trojan Women (415 b.c.e.) andAeschylus’s Agamemnon (458 b.c.e.). Other Greek dramas make reference to therape of mortals by gods. In these plays, such as Euripides’s (Ion), both the victimand the attacker are considered outside the reach of human law, and they are oftenrevered for producing children with superhuman qualities.

In the later Greek New Comedy, rape is presented in contexts that are entirely

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human. Menander’s The Arbitration (310 b.c.e.) is about a wealthy citizen whorapes but then marries his victim, the daughter of another citizen. The Romancomedies of Plautus and Terence are largely modeled after those of Menander anddeal with similar situations, including the fates of the children born to the victims.These plays are more concerned with human law than divine intervention and withplots that generate marriages across economic divides.

In plays of the Renaissance, rape is portrayed not just as a physical assault butas a loss of honor, which means a profound loss of social status. Spanish Renais-sance dramas, including those by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderon dela Barca, portray female characters who have “lost their honor” and must find away to regain it. In Calderon’s Life Is a Dream, the protagonist, Rosaura, restoresher honor by marrying her rapist. In Renaissance terms, this is considered an ac-ceptable way to restore Rosaura’s lost honor, as well as a suitable punishment forher rapist, since he is forced to renounce a more advantageous marriage. EnglishRenaissance writers place great emphasis on rape or attempted rape as a crimeagainst the husband and/or father, as well as against the victim. Shakespeare’s re-venge tragedy Titus Andronicus and his later romance The Tempest are both ex-amples. Ben Jonson’s satire Volpone is a particularly bleak look at the ways inwhich men covet their neighbors’ property, including their wives.

Rape was also regarded as a crime against honor and property in the Age ofReason, but with a difference in emphasis. Western dramatists at this time beginto discuss the subject of legal and economic independence as a way for women toprotect themselves from predatory males and abusive husbands. This arises directlyfrom a profound shift of ideas, first articulated by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke,implying that since men and women are born equal, they also have the right toown their own bodies, their own sexual pleasure, and their own economic inde-pendence. The Restoration comedies of Aphra Behn, John Vanbrugh, and WilliamWycherley contain witty and explicit discussions of these new insights. In France,Moliere explores similar themes in his plays. Many plays of this period portraysituations of attempted rape where a woman cannot rely on a male relative tointervene and so has only her own wits to save her. In consequence, rape begins tobe seen as a crime against the individual and as a violation of rights to self-determination.

This understanding extends from the eighteenth century to the present. The ma-jority of plays are still written by men, but some begin to show an increasingsensitivity to the vulnerability of the politically and economically disenfranchised,and rape is depicted as an oppressor’s weapon. Tennessee Williams’s A StreetcarNamed Desire (1948) portrays a complex woman caught in tragic circumstances,where rape is used as a weapon to destroy her sense of self. William Mastrosimone’splay Extremities (1982) depicts a similar situation, but the victim, in a stunningreversal, takes revenge upon the man who attempts to rape her by subjecting himto analogous acts of violence that break him down.

Rape becomes an important theme in several late-twentieth-century dramas doc-umenting the experience of minority women. Robbie McCauley’s performance pieceSally’s Rape and Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues show examples of the vio-lence perpetrated by dominant white, heterosexual males upon disenfranchised mi-norities. Other playwrights begin to portray rapes enacted in front of the audience,where the rape is presented not only as a physical violation of the victim but as a

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metaphor for the colonization of the culture that the victim represents. These playsinclude Howard Brenton’s Romans in Britain and Alice Tuan’s Some Asians.

Drama is no longer just a medium for writing about rape, however. Dramatictechniques are now becoming part of highly specialized therapeutic treatments forrape victims. Drama is also being used by student-run theater groups as a meansto educate students about rape, especially date rape and its devastating conse-quences. See also: Art; Films, Foreign; Films, U.S.; Literature, World and American.

Suggested Reading: Ann E. Nyman, “Sally’s Rape: Robbie McCauley’s Survival Art,” Af-rican American Review 33.4 (Winter 1999): 577–587; Anita K. Stoll and Dawn L. Smith,eds., The Perception of Women in Spanish Theater of the Golden Age (Lewisburg, PA:Bucknell University Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1991).

DOMINICA BORG

TORTURE. The World Health Association, in its 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, pre-sents the following definition of torture: “the deliberate, systematic, or wanton in-fliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons, acting alone or onthe orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to makea confession, or for any other reason.” Torture can include both physical and psy-chological methods. Physical torture can include beatings, electric shock, stretching,burning, asphyxiation, rape, and other traumas. Psychological methods includethreats, isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, mock executions, excessive stim-ulus, and forced witnessing of other traumas. Such physical and mental abuse isoften inseparable as victims are subjected to combinations of violence against them.The use of all such methods of torture has specific intents, most often for politicaleffects, to overpower and coerce into submission as well as dehumanize its victims.

Some risk factors for being tortured may include the following:

• Refugees or individuals with political asylum status

• Immigrants from a country with totalitarian history

• Members of a minority group in their country of origin

• Members of a minority political party in their country of origin

• Individuals in countries torn by civil war

• Individuals in countries where the military has governmental control

• Prisoners of war

• Individuals with a history of arrest or prison detention

• Individuals participating in antigovernment organization(s)

Human rights organizations estimate that approximately 123 countries condoneand use torture on their citizens. Other figures place the number of individuals whohave been tortured between 1.1 and 8 million people worldwide. According to J.M.Jaranson, in Caring for Victims of Torture, there are an estimated 400,000 survi-vors of torture living in the United States. However, because torture is often per-petuated in secrecy and attempts are made to suppress its extent from both theregional and international public, the numbers of victims can only be estimated.

Sexual torture with implements and animals, and acts of forced sex committedby the torturers or others, is often a central and common method in the tortureprocess of men, women, and children. Yet many judicial agencies and governinginstitutions still separate, in legal language, rape from the torture experiences. Im-

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portantly, author Lucinda Finley writes, “Legal language does more than expressthoughts, it reinforces certain world views and understanding of events.” The moveto include rape as a classification of torture has political and treatment implications.Such a change in language could provide additional legal protections that victimsof other methods of torture receive. The psychological aftermath experienced by arape victim and a torture victim is comparable diagnostically. Many survivors willmeet the same criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder, yet by continuing to classifyrape as a separate “bad act” that is not judged as heinous or as despicable astorture, victims are denied equal access to human rights law. In short, current pol-icies or beliefs perpetuate rape myths, such as rape is just sex.

A practical illustration of this cognitive splitting off of rape as somehow a dif-ferent form of torture occurs in the way services are delivered to survivors. Forinstance, a refugee may receive services for every type of torture he or she enduredexcept rape. The rape would be treated as requiring a separate and completelydifferent set of services. This fractured treatment approach continues to marginalizerape victims and adds to the likelihood that treatment for the torture experiencethat includes rape will be incomplete. The centrality of rape embedded in a tortureexperience has lasting implications for victims in ways that are qualitatively differ-ent, indeed worse, than other forms of torture. The distortion that is often expe-rienced by rape survivors serves to isolate them in their intimate relationships andin their communities. For example, if a person has been intentionally electricallyshocked or burned, they would not expect to encounter those forms of punishmentwhen they returned to their home or community, yet that same person is very likelyto encounter—indeed, be expected to engage in—sexual relations with an intimatepartner not just once but repeatedly over time.

With so many traumas superimposed simultaneously it is difficult to develop oneclear “torture syndrome.” As with any extraordinarily difficult experience, recoveryis an arduous and ongoing process. The survivor of torture will face many factorsthat mediate his or her recovery. The factors of the traumatic experience of tortureare a composite of biological predisposition, coping mechanisms, and other varia-bles that serve as protective influences over the individual’s psychological function-ing. Central to the understanding of recovery from rape in particular is theunderstanding that being raped meets the definition of torture as fully as otherforms of torture. See also: Prison Rape.

Suggested Reading: Metin Basoglu, Torture and Its Consequences: Current Treatment Ap-proaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Susan Brownmiller, Against OurWill: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975); Lucinda M. Finley,“Breaking Women’s Silence in Law: The Dilemma of the Gendered Nature of Legal Rea-soning,” Notre Dame Law Review 64 (1989): 886–888; J.M. Jaranson, Caring for Victimsof Torture (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1998); Harvey M. Weinstein,Laura Dansky, and Vincent Iacopino, “Torture and War Trauma Survivors in Primary CarePractice,” Western Journal of Medicine 165 (1996): 112–118.

JENNIFER H. PROFITT

TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Human trafficking occurs formany purposes. Most women and children are trafficked for prostitution, some formarriage, and many for exploited labor. Women who are trafficked for domesticlabor often end up being sexually exploited as well. Some children are trafficked

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for adoption. Increasingly, especially in African countries, there are reports of chil-dren being trafficked for organs.

There are enormous difficulties in producing accurate assessments of trafficking.The International Organization of Migration (IOM) attempted to estimate numbersof trafficked women in Europe for the European Union and concluded that accuratenumbers were not possible. However, the United Nations estimates that traffickingis a $5 billion to $7 billion operation annually, with 4 million persons moved fromone country to another and within countries. The U.S. government estimates that50,000 women and children are trafficked each year into the United States, pri-marily from Latin America, Russia, the New Independent States, and SoutheastAsia.

Traffickers are adept at taking advantage of any unstable conditions such asmilitary conflicts, countries in financial crisis, politically destabilized situations, orrefugee camps where women and children are often abducted or recruited. Childsexual exploitation has grown exponentially in all countries but especially in Asianand Latin American countries. Travel agencies, hotels, airlines, businesses, and so-called child protectors are often involved in sex tourism. Some child sexual abusersseem to think that they can avoid AIDS if they have sex with children, but moreoften, they seek out children because children can be made to fulfill the abusers’demands.

Organized crime is certainly involved in trafficking, but in many cases traffickersand pimps are small-scale operators who are husbands or boyfriends of victims.Women are trafficked into the United States, for example, often through othertransit countries or across neighboring borders. The women are trafficked by car,bus, boat, and plane.

The conditions of trafficking range from force or coercion to deception, abuse ofpower, or abuse of a victim’s vulnerability. Many women are deceived into thinkingthey will work as domestics, waitresses, dancers, and models. Others are sold out-right and moved around from place to place. Some know that they will engage inprostitution but have no idea of the conditions that await them. Many are womenwhose vulnerabilities are preyed upon. The majority of women in prostitution havebeen sexually abused as children. Once in the country of destination, women areheld in apartments, bars, and makeshift brothels where they service multiple menper day. Many are raped, beaten, and confined under the worst of conditions.

In most countries, various factors make it nearly impossible for trafficked womento seek assistance and to testify against traffickers and other exploiters. These in-clude death threats to themselves and their families, conditions of isolation andconfinement, the violence and control within the sex industry, constant movementfrom place to place within a strange country, fear of deportation, and the lack ofshelters. Additionally, the immigration and criminal justice system in many coun-tries is weighted against trafficked women, for the most part treating them as illegalimmigrants.

Trafficking affects mostly all countries, although not all equally. There are send-ing countries, transit countries, and countries of destination, with some countriesin all three categories. In general, the flow of trafficked women and children movesfrom poorer countries or countries in economic, social, and political crisis, to richerand more socially and politically stable countries.

Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and researchers working in thefield of trafficking list various factors that facilitate trafficking. Among them are:

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Economic policies. Promoted by international lending organizations such as theWorld Bank and the International Monetary Fund, these policies mandate “struc-tural adjustments” in many developing regions of the world, pushing certain coun-tries to export women for labor (the Philippines)—making them vulnerable totrafficking—or to develop economies based on tourism (Thailand), with a hugedependence on sex tourism.

Globalization of the sex industry. Globalization of the economy means globali-zation of the sex industry, which becomes an industry without borders. Large- andsmall-scale trafficking networks operate across borders, actively recruiting girls andwomen, especially from villages, city streets, and transportation centers. Also influ-ential is global advertising, via the Internet, magazines, and tourism brochures.

Male demand. The so-called customer has been the most invisible factor in pro-moting prostitution and the trafficking of women for prostitution worldwide.Myths about male sexuality, reluctance to problematize the supposed male “need”for commercial sexual exploitation, male sexual expectations, and the way in whichsex has been tolerated as a male right in a commodity culture are all part of thisdemand.

Female supply based on women’s inequality. Gender-based social and economicinequality in all areas of the globe assures a supply of women, especially fromdeveloping countries and newly independent states in Eastern Europe. The sex in-dustry is also built on expectations and myths about women’s sexuality, the culturalsexual objectification and commodification of women, and a history of childhoodsexual abuse of women in prostitution.

Racial myths and stereotypes. Trafficked women are eroticized and sexualized onthe basis of stereotypical racial and ethnic features. Sexual advertisements on theInternet, such as those found on the World Sex Guide, also cast prostitution as“natural” to certain groups of women.

Military presence. Armed conflict and civil strife have helped generate traffickingin many parts of the world. Sex industries have been set up around military bases,such as in Okinawa, the Philippines, and Korea, for the rest and recreation of U.S.troops. UN peacekeeping forces have trafficked women in various parts of the worldwhere they have been stationed.

Restrictive immigration policies. Countries want cheap labor, and sex industrieswant a fresh supply of “exotic” women for prostitution. At the same time, legiti-mate immigration is becoming more restrictive and discriminatory. Traffickers be-come the major international players who facilitate international migration becausethe legitimate channels are so restrictive.

State-sponsored prostitution. State-sponsored prostitution refers to any legal re-gime in which the system of prostitution itself becomes accepted and legitimatedby the State, including by regulation, decriminalization, and legalization of the sexindustry. There is good evidence that countries such as Holland and Germany, bothof which have recognized prostitution as work and as an economic sector, areprecisely the countries into which higher rates of women are trafficked. For ex-ample, a report done for the Budapest Group found that 80 percent of the womenin the brothels in the Netherlands, a country that has fully legalized pimping, broth-els, and buying women for sex, have been trafficked to the Netherlands.

The transnational nature of trafficking means that NGOs and countries mustwork across borders to confront the problem. Thus it is significant that the con-cluding piece of international legislation in the twentieth century was the Protocol

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to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Chil-dren, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.It complements the older UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic inPersons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, often referred to asthe 1949 Convention. Together, they are key international tools in the struggle toabolish prostitution and trafficking.

The definition of trafficking, contained in the protocol, helps ensure that all vic-tims of trafficking in persons are protected, not just those who can prove force(Article 3a and b); that victims of trafficking will not bear the burden of proof(Article 3b); that the consent of a victim of trafficking is irrelevant (Article 3b); thatthere is a comprehensive coverage of criminal means by which trafficking takesplace, including not only force, coercion, abduction, deception, or abuse of powerbut also less explicit means, such as abuse of a victim’s vulnerability (Article 3a).

Other major provisions of the UN antitrafficking protocol include that traffickedpersons are no longer viewed as criminals but as victims of a crime; that globaltrafficking will be answered with a global response; that there is now an agreed-upon set of prosecution, protection, and prevention mechanisms on which to basenational antitrafficking legislation against trafficking; that it is not necessary for avictim to cross a border, subject to provisions listed in Article 3 of the main Con-vention; that the key actionable element in the trafficking process is the exploitationrather than simply the movement across a border (Article 3a); and that this protocolis the first UN instrument to address the demand that results in women and childrenbeing trafficked, calling upon countries to take or strengthen legislative or othermeasures to discourage this demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of womenand children (Article 9.5). See also: Child Rape; Comfort Women; Computers andthe Internet; Slavery.

Suggested Reading: Sheila Jeffreys, The Idea of Prostitution (Melbourne: Spinifex Press,1997); Janice G. Raymond, Jean d’Cunha, Siti Ruhaini Dzuhayatin, H. Patricia Hynes, Zo-raida Ramirez Rodriguez, and Aida Santos, A Comparative Study of Women Trafficked inthe Migration Process: Patterns, Profiles and Health Consequences of Sexual Exploitationin Five Countries (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela and the United States),funded by the Ford Foundation (North Amherst, MA: Coalition against Trafficking inWomen, 2002), http://www.catwinternational.org; Amy O’Neill Richard, International Traf-ficking in Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Or-ganized Crime (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1999), http://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/women/trafficking.pdf.

JANICE G. RAYMOND

TRIBAL CUSTOMS AND LAWS. Tribal communities, particularly in remote ar-eas of the world, often have different understandings of and customs concerningrape. Some of these customs have evolved into customary law, either operatingwithin a larger state structure or being utilized in a clandestine manner in regionswhere state authorities have limited control and tribal peoples have either littleknowledge of state laws or scant respect for them, preferring their own forms ofjustice. Thus, understanding tribal customs in the instance of rape involves reorient-ing concepts of crime as offenses that upset a pattern of social relationships withinand between communities, and justice as restorative of these relationships. Thisholds true historically for tribal communities that operated forms of customary law

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unmodified by contact with laws in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Islamic laws, orHindu norms and those whose customs and laws have been modified, even if themodification is unacknowledged.

Scholars argue today that gender discrimination was less pronounced in tribalsocieties, due to the recognition of women’s socioeconomic contributions to thecommunity. Moreover, it has been observed that women’s status declines when theireconomic contribution is reduced, for example, by the introduction of new tech-nology or by the adoption of social practices such as seclusion.

In New Zealand, under traditional Maori law, rape was punishable in some caseswith death, since in the Maori view, violence toward a woman was an affront toher and her extended kin group (whanau), to be punished and compensated ac-cordingly. The colonially introduced English legal system, now in place, accordswomen less autonomy and legal standing in comparison with their precolonialstatus and has eroded their capacity to seek effective redress in cases of sexualviolence such as rape.

A similar process has occurred among aboriginal peoples in Australia, where anintense debate took place in the late 1980s concerning rape within the aboriginalcommunity. Feminist scholars argued that colonization had a devastating effectupon male-female relations and that women have lost their traditional power baseand are no longer able to take preventative or punitive measures against rapists.However, in the context of wider racism in Australian society, this acknowledgmentpits aboriginal women against aboriginal men, who thus continue in their silenceabout rape within their own community.

In many tribal societies, sexual intercourse is considered consensual, and there isno concept of a sexual offense, which offends the wider community. Customarylaw regulating sexual behavior is principally concerned with adultery, consideredan infringement of the exclusive sexual privilege of the husband over the wife, orvice versa in more equalitarian bands. Offenders among the Garo from Meghalaya(India) can be subject either to customary law, under which the offense is nondis-criminatory in gender terms, or the (colonial) Indian Penal Code, which discrimi-nates against women. Customary punishment is a compensatory fine paid to thehusband or wife. However, since kidnapping is a commonly practiced form of mar-riage among several Northeastern tribes in India, the punishment for which is tomake the offender pay the bride-price, this practice begs the question of whethercustom prevents women from labeling such actions as rape.

Other customs that raise questions as to the consensual nature of sex include thepractice of fraternal polyandry, when the marriage of an elder brother gives theyounger brothers in a family sanctioned sexual access to the wife. Polyandry is notthe general custom but is found among the Gallongs of Arunachal Pradesh (India).Rape is recognized as an offense by the Mishmis of the Lohit Valley (India). Al-though the punishment for rape is less than that for adultery, the relative statusesof the offenders’ and victims’ clans are crucial to the question of justice. Nowadaysmonetary compensation is often substituted for compensation in buffalo.

Anthropologists have sometimes been misinformed as to the customs of tribalsocieties concerning rape. The most important of such instances involved the re-search of Margaret Mead in Samoa in 1925–1926. She asserted in her book Comingof Age in Samoa (1928) that premarital sexual relations were commonplace andunproblematic in easygoing, harmonious Samoa, that rape was absent and adoles-cence unmarked by the stresses suffered by youth in Western countries. Her con-

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clusions have now been thoroughly refuted, particularly since Samoa has, and hadin the 1920s, one of the highest rates of reported rape in the world. Samoa wasdistinguished by an unusual form of surreptitious rape (moetotolo) whereby a mancrept in at night and assaulted a virgin digitally (with his finger), in a reenactmentof ritualistic public deflowerings that demonstrated a bride’s virginity. In customarylaw the offense of moetotolo carried a substantial fine to be paid in kind by theoffender’s chief. Forced sexual intercourse carried an even stiffer and humiliatingsentence of saisai, whereby an offender was trussed up in a public place as if hewere a pig ready to be baked.

Among tribal communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan professing Islam anddescribed as having a “feudal culture,” tribal councils (jirga/panchayat) have beenknown to order rape or gang rape, or effectively endorse action taken by privateactors. Ordering rape as punishment might be considered lenient, considering thatit is more common for a woman to be killed when suspected of an illicit relation-ship, for expressing a desire for a choice of marriage partner, for seeking divorce,or because she has been raped. In honor killings, known as karo-kari, women arehacked to pieces, shot, or burned to death. The loss of a woman’s honor is believedto shame her male relatives particularly, since women embody the honor of menwhose property they are considered to be. A man must be able to demonstrate hispower to safeguard his honor by killing or obtaining compensation from those whodamaged it and thereby restore his honor. In July 2002, the Pakistan Supreme Courtstrongly criticized the local police in a case in the village of Mirwali in Punjabprovince, where on June 22, 2002, Mukhtar Bibi was gang raped on the orders ofthe jirga. The council made the ruling to rape her in order to punish her familyafter allegations that her brother had been involved with a woman from a higher-status tribe.

In 2000 in Madhya Pradesh in central India where tribal customs have beeninfluenced by upper-caste Hindu norms, the village council decided to punish ayoung tribal rape victim, Sonata Bai, for having had an “illicit relationship.” Ac-cording to the current interpretation of Gond tribal custom, she was ordered tohave sex in public with her “paramour” in order to “purify herself,” effectively, asecond rape. She was, however, rescued from this fate by the wife of the chief.

In Papua, New Guinea, the effects of colonization and development have resultedin a reported rate of 45 rapes per 100,000 persons in the 1980s, a higher rate thanin the United States, together with a high incidence of gang rape. Sexual violenceis perpetuated against a background of political and tribal violence over land dis-putes. Male cults, which celebrated masculinity by sexually abusing widows andother women without male protection, were traditionally important in some NewGuinean communities but have died out under Christian influence. Nevertheless,several authors describing different New Guinea tribes have noted the prevalenceof punitive rape as a method of punishing women for transgressing tribal customs.The echoes of these practices can be found today in rascal gangs and in the genderideology still imbibed by young men prior to marriage, which stresses male supe-riority and the dangerousness of women. Sexual violence occurs today in the con-text of rapid Westernization, new forms of female subservience introduced byChristian missions, as well as male insecurity concerning female independence andthe effects of urbanized lifestyles on male-female relations.

Traditionally tribal societies have both condemned and condoned rape, the ma-jority having customary law treating it as an offense. However, amidst rapid change

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and development, these societies have been subjected to religious change, concom-itant influence on legal norms, and the imposition of colonial penal regimes. In thecontext of pressure exerted by the societal norms and legal sanctions of dominanttraditions, some tribal societies have resorted to utilizing rape as a punishment tocontrol women, whereas others demonstrate their inability to enforce traditionalsanctions against rape in the face of alien legal codes. Investigating rape thus high-lights the plight of tribal communities worldwide in their struggle to come to termswith colonial histories, development, and globalization. See also: Rape Law; Vir-gins/Virginity.

Suggested Reading: Diane Bell and Topsy Napurrula Nelson, “Speaking About Rape IsEveryone’s Business,” Women’s Studies International Forum 12.4 (1989): 403–416; DerekFreeman, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an AnthropologicalMyth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); Stephanie Milroy, “Milroy MaoriWomen and Domestic Violence: The Methodology of Research and the Maori Perspective,”Waikato Law Review 4.1 (Special Issue 1996): 58–76; Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi, “ ‘WildPigs and Dog Men’: Rape and Domestic Violence as ‘Women’s Issues’ in Papua NewGuinea,” in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. C. Brettell and C. Sargent (EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 538–553.

EMMA ALEXANDER

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UNITED STATES V. LANIER. In United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259 (1997), theU.S. Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant indicted for sexual assault undera federal statute needed “fair warning” at the time of the alleged assaults that hisconduct was criminal under the statute. Lanier, a state court judge, had been ac-cused of sexually assaulting women in his judicial chambers. The United States triedand convicted Lanier under 18 U.S.C. § 242 for willfully acting under the color ofTennessee law to deny the victims their constitutional right to be protected fromsexual assault.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed that judgment,but the Sixth Circuit, in an en banc decision, set aside the convictions for lack ofnotice to the public that 18 U.S.C. § 242 covers sexual assault crimes. The courtheld that notice occurs only when the violated right (i.e., to be free from sexualassault) is identified under § 242 in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion and only whensuch right has been applied in a U.S. Supreme Court case that is factually similarto the case before the court.

The unanimous Supreme Court held that the Sixth Circuit’s test of notice wastoo strict, stating that before criminal liability is imposed, due process requires “fairwarning . . . of what the law intends.” At question was whether the statute clearlyestablished that the alleged conduct was unlawful under the U.S. Constitution atthe time at which it purportedly occurred. The Court stated that the rights deprivedby the defendant need not have been identified in a prior decision of the Court,and it rejected the suggested requirement of a factually similar case. It also ruledthat liability may be imposed under § 242 if, in light of preexisting law, the unlaw-fulness of the defendant’s conduct is apparent. Since the Sixth Circuit used thewrong gauge in deciding whether prior judicial decisions gave fair warning thatLanier’s actions were in violation of certain constitutional rights, the Supreme Courtvacated the judgment of the appellate court and remanded the case for applicationof the proper standard. See also: Rape Law.

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Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000).

GREGORY M. DUHL

U.S. MILITARY. Women have always served the military in times of war, originallyas nurses and later in secretarial or clerical capacities, but it wasn’t until the twen-tieth century that the armed forces slowly began allowing women to enlist, performthe duties of sailors and soldiers, and receive the benefits of a military career. Whileinstances of sexual harassment and assault surely existed before, they came to theforefront as women permeated a previously male world, especially with the intro-duction of integrated basic training. Issues of power and abuse, gender differencesand equality, political correctness and feminism swirled and muddied the picture.

The Navy and Tailhook

The first large-scale scandal occurred in 1991 after the 35th Annual TailhookSymposium, a three-day convention of navy and Marine Corps aviators. The Tail-hook Association was originally a private organization, a group of former militarymen who gathered to drink and reminisce. In the late 1960s, the annual symposiumwas condoned by the navy, and the assistant chief of Naval Operations becameresponsible for planning certain functions. In addition to professional development,though, the convention was historically a rowdy weekend, one that led the presidentof the association to warn attendees beforehand about past instances of inappro-priate behavior. Men competed to design the most desirable hospitality suites, andthe criteria typically involved the amount of liquor, the number of strippers, andthe incidents of wild behavior.

When Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, a helicopter pilot, entered a hotel hallway, sheclaimed that a gauntlet of officers surrounded her, pulled at her clothing, forcedher to the ground, and laughed at her cries for help. After Coughlin publicly accusedfellow officers of molesting her, more than 80 women and at least 7 men followedsuit, also claiming to have been assaulted. The navy severed its connection with theTailhook Association immediately, and a series of official investigations followed.A 2,000-page report produced in April 1992 by the Inspector General and theNaval Investigative Service described drunken maulings, women being grabbed anddisrobed, and outright assault. It increased public furor over the events and led tofurther inquiries by the Pentagon and the navy. By the following year, more than100 officers were being investigated for indecent exposure, assault, conduct unbe-coming an officer, and lying to Pentagon officials. Most of the accused receivedfines or career penalties, and no cases ever went to trial.

Some explanations proffered for the officers’ actions included traditions estab-lished at previous Tailhook conventions and a celebration mentality stemming fromvictory in the Gulf War. Men argued that they were judged by a double standard:Women were allowed to act wildly, but men were not. Women argued that seriousallegations were essentially dismissed when the accused received few or no penaltiesfor less serious charges. One female navy commander suggested a general misogy-nist attitude was surfacing as women began to compete for men’s jobs in an ever-downsizing military. Most women, however, remained silent, choosing the securityof their careers over thin hopes for justice or restitution.

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The Army and Aberdeen

Two of the navy’s long-term reactions to the Tailhook affair included a push torecruit more women and gender-integrated basic training. The idea was to dilutethe masculine aura by increasing the feminine presence. The army followed suit in1993–1994. By the end of 1996, though, the army was wallowing in charges ofsexual assault and rape of trainees by sergeants at Aberdeen Proving Ground, atraining base in Maryland. The initial incidents occurred between July and Septem-ber of 1996 and went unchecked until Private Jessica Bleckley made them public.A flurry of additional allegations followed. The army quickly announced that it wasfiling charges against 3 officers and was investigating nearly 20 more. A hotlinewas set up and received almost 4,000 calls that resulted in 500 cases that warrantedfurther examination.

Disbelief quickly surfaced over how other sergeants could be unaware such abusewas happening, leading many to criticize the macho-male attitude that permeatedthe military. To compound matters, new controversies soon came to the forefront.At one point, the alleged victims claimed that officials forced them to label theincidents rapes so that the army could strike back with a vengeance and restore itspublic image. Others claimed the charges were racially motivated because most ofthe accusers were white, while most of the accused were black. The press questionedthe army’s ability to investigate itself, raising doubts as to the legitimacy of theentire procedure. Nevertheless, a few relatively quick convictions combined withthe army’s attempt to demonstrate an appropriate response—rape prevention clas-ses for new recruits and sexual harassment training for officers—eventually put thescandal to rest.

The Academies

In 1976, the three U.S. Service academies opened their doors to women and toaccusations of sexual impropriety and assault. Although West Point and Annapolishave managed to handle the sensitive issue without public scrutiny, the Air ForceAcademy in Colorado Springs continues to have problems.

In 1996, the Air Force Academy established a hotline for reporting rapes andaveraged five cases per year since that time. Over the years, a handful of male cadetsfaced courts-martial, and slightly more were dismissed or reprimanded. After severalyears of relative quiet on the scandal front, however, rape in the military reenteredthe headlines in early 2003 when female cadets claimed that they had been sexuallyassaulted by superiors in their chain of command. The cadets further charged thatnot only were their complaints ignored by authorities but that they were disciplinedfor reporting it and even told they were partially to blame.

The air force ordered a review of the Academy’s procedures for handling rapeaccusations. A military panel convened to investigate the accusations declared therewas no evidence of officials having ignored complaints. A civilian panel establishedby Congress, however, testified that the Visitors Board charged with overseeingmorale and discipline failed to adequately handle the situation. Soon afterward, theair force removed the Academy’s leadership, virtually ending the careers of GeneralJohn Dallager, Brigadier General Slvanus Taco Gilbert III, Colonel Robert Eskridge,and Colonel Laurie Slavec. The new Commandant of Cadets, Brigadier GeneralJohnny Weida, decided that at least one accused cadet would face court-martial.

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Rationales and Responses

The sticking point on both sides concerns fear and confidentiality. When theperson with the authority to help is also the person committing the crime, the fearof retribution increases, and victims understandably feel hopeless. After a 1993scandal where a cadet alleged that she was gang raped by three fellow cadets, theAir Force Academy instituted a sweeping policy of anonymity for victims. Leadersat the Air Force Academy in 2003 then claimed that the silence stemming from thatregulation prevented them from discovering how deeply the problem permeated theschool. Consequently, there has been an about-face. All reports of assault or rapeare now reported to the alleged victim’s commanding officer. Victim advocatesdecry this change, leading decision makers into a labyrinth of uncertainty about theright course of action.

Granting victims privacy through hot line reporting mechanisms encourageswomen to come forward—but only to a point. The number of cases reported viathe hotline is 5 times greater than the number of cases investigated and nearly 10times greater than the number of cases that result in judicial hearings. When thelikelihood of conviction is small and the likelihood of humiliation or denigrationis great, women often choose not to pursue the charges.

When servicemen face judicial hearings for charges of sexual assault, there iscontroversy over the legal definition of rape. In civilian cases, sex with force andwithout consent defines rape. In the military, though, the theory of constructiveforce—an abuse of power wherein the victim fears for her safety, whether or notthe accused uses physical force—overshadows the prosecutions. This is how ArmyStaff Sergeant Delmar Simpson was convicted of raping six women at Aberdeen,even though the victims admitted he never forced them to have sex. Instead, theirfear of his authority and his ability to end their military careers constituted forcein the court’s eyes.

Despite these flaws, the armed services are seeking to remedy the problem, havinglearned from Tailhook and Aberdeen that the issues loom large and threaten keyelements of the military’s nature: trust, order, and the chain of command. The navyhas established a sexual assault victim intervention program, while the army hasinstituted sexual assault review boards at its major medical facilities. Even the De-partment of Veteran Affairs now provides treatment for the trauma of past sexualassaults while in the military. Each scandal leads to a better solution, but few areoptimistic enough to believe that rape in the military has been conquered. See also:Okinawa Rape Case; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: Elizabeth Gleick, “Scandal in the Military: Reports of Rape at an ArmyTraining Base Suggest That the Services’ Tolerance for Sexual Harassment Is More ThanZero,” Time, November 25, 1996; Stephanie Gutmann, “The Road from Aberdeen,” TheNew Republic, February 24, 1997; Ted Koppel and Michel McQueen, “Investigating theInvestigators,” ABC Nightline, March 13, 1997; PBS Online, “Frontline: Tailhook ’91,”http://www.pbs.org/; Hanna Rosin, “How the Army Learned to Love Andrea Dworkin,”The New Republic, June 23, 1997; Diana Schemo (series of Air Force Academy articles),New York Times, June 24, 2003, July 11, 2003, July 17, 2003; Robert Weller (series of AirForce Academy articles), San Diego Union-Tribune, February 17, 2003, March 30, 2003,June 7, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 16, 2003.

GREGORY M. DUHL

V

VICTIMS. Rape victims extend as far back as antiquity. The biblical Dinah is rapedby Shechem who “saw her, took her, lay with her and defiled her” (Genesis 34).Roman men captured the Sabine women (see Rape of the Sabine Women) spiritedthem away from their homes on horseback, and kept them from returning to theirfamilies and friends. Fine art glorifies the victims of rape, and their perpetrators asbeautiful or handsome, sexy or powerful, erotic and virile. In real life, however,rape victims are brutalized, ignored, or harassed by the system that is designed tohelp them. They are traumatized, stigmatized, or shamed for life, if they are notkilled during the attack.

In times of political upheaval or war, rape victims are dehumanized both sym-bolically and physically as the “other.” In contrast to urban victims, these womenare not known to their perpetrators and are perceived as “the enemy” or less thanhuman. Victims during the Vietnam “conflict” included young Asian girls raped byAmerican soldiers. The 1990s wars in the Balkans and the term “ethnic cleansing”exposed to the world groups of women who were deliberately raped for the purposeof impregnation by the aggressors. In this way, they would be forced to bear thechildren of their enemies. Examples too numerous to list exist in all countries be-cause when war is waged, the concomitant destruction of the sociopolitical infra-structure leads to a climate conducive to rape.

Until the late twentieth century, rape was defined as “the forcible penetration ofthe body of a woman, not the wife of the perpetrator”(Russell, 32); therefore, bydefinition, a wife would not be considered a victim. However, in 1993, all 50 stateshad removed the spousal exemption from their laws on rape and sexual assault sothat a married woman could be deemed a victim. Modern society is informedenough to acknowledge that victims are married or single, women, men, boys, orgirls; a rape victim can be an infant or an elderly nursing home resident. Gay menare victims of nonconsensual sex, their perpetrators sometimes, but not always,other gay men.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 1990 reported that females

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between 16 and 19 were at greatest risk of being raped, followed by females 20 to24, then ages 12 to 15. The socioeconomic status varied directly with the frequencyof rape, that is, the lower the status, the more likely a woman was to be raped.Although this survey found that there were no differences in rates between whiteand black women, it should be noted that the data available on black women wasa smaller sample.

A slight majority of rapes occur at night. In one study, half of the rapes reportedoccurred between 8:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. (Kaplan and Weisberg). In another,66.7% of the rapes took place between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. (Hall, 91). If thevictim did work, she had a job that characteristically involved face-to-face contact,was highly visible, and required close interactions with males and had an outgoingpersonality. The job put the victim at risk because often it required nontraditionalworking hours (early morning or late at night). This made the woman more sus-ceptible to ambush because she was likely to be observed walking alone in the dark.Waitresses, barmaids, and nurses were in these categories. Unfortunately many ofthe qualities that our culture reinforces positively in women make them more likelyto be victims. Women have been socialized to be nurturing and altruistic, to carefor others, and to be more concerned about others’ needs than their own. Sometimesthey become rape victims because these qualities work against them. For example,many of serial rapist (see Serial Rape and Serial Rapists) and murderer Ted Bundy’svictims were eager to help him because he feigned a broken limb and needed helpwith groceries. Women traditionally had been socialized to be weaker than men,although this has changed in the past 20 years with the promotion of fitness centers,girls’ athletics in schools, and self-defense classes.

There are some behaviors that put women more at risk for rape, but because ofgender-role stereotypes, these are difficult to extinguish. In one study, it was foundthat “one-third of rape victims came into contact with their assailants voluntarily,under circumstances other than hitchhiking” (Kaplan and Weisberg). Date rape isone example where this occurs frequently. Out of a group of 623 college students,22 percent of the women and 16 percent of the men responded that they hadexperienced at least one incident of forced sexual intercourse on a date” (Hyde,480).

Rape victims tend to be smaller and weaker than perpetrators, and they generallyoccupy a less dominant social role. This is evidenced in prison rapes of males bymore dominant male inmates, incest victims, employees who are harassed so muchthat the behavior escalates to rape, and students who are raped by teachers ortrusted mentors. A common myth about the rape victim is that he or she was“asking for it,” thereby switching culpability and presenting the victim as the crim-inal rather than the rapist. When a prostitute or “promiscuous woman” is thevictim, her credibility is more often challenged than that of other victims.

Because not all victims report their rape experience, there is not enough infor-mation about them. In a London study at a rape crisis center, 75 percent did notreport the crime to the police, even after encouraged to do so. Another study doc-umented that 92 percent chose not to report the rape to law enforcement (Temkin).In the United States, the National Crime Victimization Survey indicated that in athree-year period from 1985 to 1988, between 35 and 53 percent of forcible rapeswere not reported to the police. In 1991, that same survey found that 45 percentdid not report the crime. In Boston in 1992, less than 19 percent were reported tothe police. In general, when the victims were between 12 and 15, they were more

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likely to be reported than others. The phenomenon of secondary rape by the lawenforcement and legal system could explain the reason for underreporting. Ironi-cally, the brutality of the legal system shares more with the rapist than with thecounselor of the victim. Perhaps when victims can report their trauma without fearof additional invasiveness, the statistics will be more relevant and accurate. See also:Survivors.

Suggested Reading: Rob Hall, Rape in America (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1995);Janet Shibley Hyde, Understanding Human Sexuality (New York: Macmillan, 1990); JohnKaplan and Robert Weisberg, Criminal Law (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), 1052; DianaRussell, Rape in Marriage (New York: Macmillan, 1982), 32; Jennifer Temkin, Women,Rape and Law Reform, in Rape, ed. Sylvia Tomasselli and Roy Porter (New York: BasilBlackwell, 1986), 16–40.

LANA THOMPSON

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT (VAWA). In response to mounting evi-dence of violence against women, the U.S. Congress enacted the Violence againstWomen Act (VAWA) of 1994 to give both the federal government and state andlocal governments new tools with which to fight domestic violence and sexual as-sault. Congress cited Centers for Disease Control statistics that at least one out ofevery six females in the United States will be beaten or sexually abused in herlifetime. VAWA was originally intended to deal with domestic violence only, butlobbying by the National Coalition against Sexual Assault (NCASA), the NationalOrganization for Women (NOW), and other women’s groups convinced sponsorSenator Joseph Biden (D–DE) to add rape services and prevention to VAWA.

VAWA established federal penalties for interstate stalking and spousal abuse,created the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and increased federal penalties forrepeat offenders. Other provisions of the bill set aside grant money to build orimprove battered women shelters, increase rape crisis intervention, hire additionalpolice officers, and provide training on rape and domestic violence. President BillClinton created the Office of Violence against Women within the Department ofJustice. The most controversial aspect of VAW dealt with granting victims the rightto bring civil rights suits against their attackers. The Supreme Court overturnedthis provision of VAWA in 2000 in United States v. Morrison (529 U.S. 598).

The success of the VAWA has been documented in a number of ways. Reportsof domestic violence have declined by 25 percent. More than 250,000 calls havebeen received on the National Domestic Violence Hotline since 1986. The AmericanBar Association reports that overall crimes against women have dropped 21 percent,while Congress estimates that more than 300,000 women and children have beenprovided with shelter under VAWA.

The 1994 version of the VAWA expired on October 1, 2000. Congress reau-thorized the bill, known as VAWA II, and increased funding to $3 billion over afive-year period. VAWA II expanded the number of programs, including provisionsaimed at making college campuses safer for females. Other elements of the 2000bill provide increased protection for children, the elderly, the disabled, and immi-grant women who are victims of gender-related violence. The addition of legalassistance for victims also strengthens the bill. The most controversial provision ofVAWA II is “Aimee’s Law,” named after Aimee Willard, a college senior fromPhiladelphia who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a convicted murderer

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who had been given early release from a Nevada prison. The “Aimee’s Law” pro-vision withholds federal funds from states that hand down light sentences for crim-inals who then commit gender-related violence in other states. See also: MaritalRape; Rape Education; Rape History in the United States: Twentieth Century; RapeStatistics.

Suggested Reading: Maria Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politicsof Sexual Assault (Boston: Northeastern Press, 2000); Holly Idelson, “A Tougher DomesticViolence Law,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, June 25, 1994, 1714; RhondaMcMillion, “Stronger Voice for Victims,” ABA Journal (December 2000): 98; Office ofJustice Programs, Department of Justice, “Office of Violence against Women, 30 April 2003,http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/vawo/; Claire M. Renzetti et al., eds., Sourcebook on Violenceagainst Women (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001).

ELIZABETH R. PURDY

VIRGINS/VIRGINITY. Across the world and throughout history, the rape of avirgin has often been deemed a more serious crime than that of a sexually experi-enced woman. In the past, this has mainly been due to the idea that women aremen’s property. Nonvirgins were not as desirable on the marriage market. In coun-tries where bridewealth was exchanged, the bride’s father could no longer demandas much compensation for the loss of her labor. In countries where the bride’sfamily provided a dowry along with their daughter as an incentive for marriageand as a means to start an independent household, the father of a nonvirgin wouldbe required to offer a much larger dowry to compensate for his daughter’s statusas “damaged goods.” This was the case in medieval England, where there were twopreferred methods for settling rape cases out of court. The first involved the rapistsupplying his victim with a larger dowry, which was supposed to enable her to finda husband despite her past. The second was for the rapist to marry his victim. Inso doing, the rapist restored honor to his victim and her family. British jurist andscholar Henri de Bracton (d. 1268) argued that the rapist of a virgin should losehis member (i.e., be castrated) since he had deprived her of her hymen.

Being a virgin can help a woman prove to the court’s satisfaction that a sexualassault was indeed nonconsensual. However, while this has generally been the case,it was not always so. For example, in Renaissance Venice, it was more difficult foran unmarried young woman to prove she had been raped because it was assumedthat she was naturally more lustful and seeking to attract a husband using anymeans possible, whereas in sixteenth-century Augsburg, proving a rape was moredifficult for a married woman since she was sexually experienced and thereforepresumed to desire intercourse frequently.

Some women, such as Roman vestal virgins and Catholic nuns, have had tomaintain their virginity for religious reasons. The rape of such virgins is a crimeagainst the state and deity, as well as the woman, and thus of a much more seriousnature. A vestal virgin who lost her virginity was buried alive. Anglo-Saxon lawslisted higher rates of compensation for the rape of a nun than other virgins. Sincethe early days of Christianity, theologians had debated about whether a virgin whowas raped was corrupted. The argument was that if a woman remained chaste inmind, then the damage done to her body was of little consequence regarding herpurity.

Today, almost every country has a minimum age at which a person can legally

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consent to heterosexual sexual intercourse. This age varies between 7 (boys) and12 (girls) to 21 (both). Sexual intercourse with a person younger than this, consen-sual or nonconsensual, automatically constitutes rape. Over the past 150 years,there has been a growing trend in the Western world of viewing children as innocentcreatures devoid of sexual feelings. The result of this new attitude has been anincreasing success rate in prosecuting child rape and harsher penalties for perpetra-tors.

Many reasons have been advanced to explain why some men prefer sexual in-tercourse with virgins, one of which is the desire to be the first person to do so. Inthe past, male preoccupation with female virginity and chastity was a means ofensuring that the offspring of one’s wife were one’s own blood children. This al-lowed men to feel secure in the knowledge that their property would remain withinthe family. Another rationale had to do with popular perceptions of health andhygiene. In eighteenth-century London, men infected with venereal disease soughtout virgins as a cure, believing they could transfer the infection to her via inter-course. Court records attest to the increased problem of virgin rape during thiscentury. Similar folk “cures” are common in regions of present-day Africa, partic-ularly in places where the social fabric has been weakened by war, famine, andeconomic depression and where the rate of HIV/AIDS infection is high. See also:African Women and Girls; Rape Myths.

Suggested Reading: Anthony E. Simpson, “Vulnerability and the Age of Female Consent:Legal Innovation and Its Effect on Prosecution for Rape in Eighteenth-Century London,” inSexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, ed. G.S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1987), 181–205; Georges Vigarello, A History of Rape: SexualViolence in France from the 16th to the 20th Century, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: PolityPress, 2002).

TONYA MARIE LAMBERT

VOYEURISM. Voyeurism refers to obtaining sexual gratification by observing oth-ers who are undressing, naked, or participating in sexual activity. More technically,it is defined as a paraphilia, a term designed to avoid the term perversion, and usedto describe unusual sexual behavior that might be considered problematic for theperson involved and contrary to societal norms. The use of the words societal normsis important, since voyeurism in its broadest sense is almost normative among menin general as witnessed by the popularity of male-targeted magazines such as Play-boy and Hustler, erotic or pornographic movies, tapes, and Internet sites. The term“Peeping Tom” demonstrates that voyeurism has long been recognized as an aspectof male behavior.

Voyeurism only becomes problematical when it goes beyond the norms. Manyadolescent or adult males might take advantage of an opportunity to observewomen who are undressed or engaged in sexual activity, if they can do so becausethe woman’s bedroom is in plain sight from their own window or street. Othersmight masturbate by examining the catalogues of Victoria’s Secret, projecting theirsearch for the unattainable onto underclothes associated with women. However, tofurtively seek out the forbidden sights by climbing a fence to peer through a bed-room window, to use a mirror to peer under women’s clothing, to look throughpeepholes into dressing rooms or toilets, or to enter people’s homes in order towatch them while they sleep, and similar compulsive obsessive behaviors, brings

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them to the attention of law enforcement officials. The voyeur often masturbateswhile he engages in such behaviors, and part of the excitement and pleasure of suchforbidden sexual behaviors is the risk of discovery.

There is a general belief that voyeurs do not engage in rape, but if it becomespart of a group experience, they might well do so. Some experts see group voyeur-ism as a factor in gang rape, whether such voyeuristic activities take place in collegefraternities, among the military, or among street gangs.

In the past most paraphilias, or those more likely to engage in such behavior,were male, but that is changing, as the popularity of male strip shows, male go-godancers, and nude photos of men in women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitanindicates a female interest in this type of activity. Traditionally the difference hasbeen described as due to men’s greater sensitivity to visual stimuli, but the changingbehavior of women might well indicate it had a lot to do with the cultural con-straints imposed on women seeking out sexual stimuli.

Interestingly, however, only a few states prohibit voyeurism as such, and whenthe voyeur who becomes a nuisance is arrested, he is likely to be prosecuted underantiloitering and disorderly conduct laws and in extreme cases for unlawful break-ing and entering. See also: Media; Pornography.

Suggested Reading: G.G. Abel and C.A. Osborn, “The Paraphilias,” in New Oxford Text-book of Psychiatry, ed. M.G. Gelder, J.J. Lopez-Ibor, and N. Andreason (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000); John Money, Love Maps (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986);D. Symonds, The Evolution of Human Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

VERN L. BULLOUGH

W

WAR CRIMES. War crimes have been recognized as a feature of war for a longtime. However, in 1945 the Nuremberg Charter defined them, for the first time atan international level, as the violation or breach of the laws or customs of war.Only the most serious atrocities are covered as examples in this text, as well as inlater International Humanitarian Law treaties. According to the Geneva Conven-tions of 1949, each party to an armed conflict of an international or noninterna-tional character—either States or other armed groups—must respect and apply thegeneral principles of humanitarian law, whose aim is to restrict means and methodsof warfare and to protect war victims. In this sense, the legal provisions againstwar crimes contained in these international instruments are widely recognized ascustomary international law and have an erga omnes character, due to the basicvalues they seek to protect. Since those obligations imply to treat civilians “hu-manely,” it is conceived today that aggressive acts inflicted on women may consti-tute the war crimes of rape, outrages upon personal dignity, sexual violence, andtorture.

In the trials held after World War II in Nuremberg, even if sex crimes committedby German soldiers were reported and sustained by evidence, these offenses wereexcluded from the jurisdiction of the court, and they could not be prosecuted.Although there still was not a list of gender crimes in the Tokyo Charter, theInternational Military Tribunal for the Far East could walk a step further, since intheir activities it considered that rape of civilian women and medical staff couldrepresent ill-treatment, inhumane treatment, or failure to respect family honor andrights.

From this precedent onward, it becomes clear that rape can become a warcrime—in domestic legislations, customary laws, and conventional documents—whenever it is committed during the course of an armed conflict. Rape and enforcedprostitution are explicitly forbidden in the Geneva Convention IV, Article 27, andin the 1977 Additional Protocols (Article 76.1, Protocol I, and Article 4.2.e., Pro-tocol II).

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In all wars, rape crimes are committed for a multitude of reasons. One single actof sexual penetration may support a cause of action under several different cate-gories. However, since sex crimes receive no widespread international definition, itremains difficult to achieve in International Humanitarian Law a consensus on thenotion of rape. Despite these difficulties, rape is generally understood—in the lawof armed conflicts and international jurisprudence—as the sexual penetration of thevictim (through vagina, mouth, or anus) by any body part or object. As it can beseen, in this broad sense there is no distinction within the concept based on thegender of victims or aggressors, or regarding the means or effects of the penetration.Punishment of rape as war crimes both in the ad hoc Security Council–createdtribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda show an important genderissue awareness that could become an undeniable precedent for the working of theInternational Criminal Court as far as the protection of women’s rights duringarmed conflicts is concerned. See also: Bosnia-Herzegovina; Genocide; Rape ofNanking; Wartime Rape.

Suggested Reading: Judith Gardam, “Women, Human Rights and International Humani-tarian Law,” International Review of the Red Cross 324 (1998): 421–432; Francoise Krill,“The Protection of Women in International Humanitarian Law,” International Review ofthe Red Cross 249 (1985): 337–363; Theodor Meron, “Rape as a Crime under InternationalHumanitarian Law,” American Journal of International Law 87.3 (1993): 424–428; Cath-erine N. Niarchos, “Women, War and Rape: Challenges Facing the International Tribunalfor the Former Yugoslavia,” Human Rights Quarterly 17.4 (1995): 649–690.

EMILIANO J. BUIS

WARTIME RAPE. Although the practice of soldiers raping the enemy’s womenduring war is seen throughout history, what is new is the role of media and itsimpact on this subject. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s significant interest in thistopic developed, symbolized best by the publication of Susan Brownmiller’s AgainstOur Will in 1975. Since then almost unimaginable changes have occurred, in largemeasure because of the instant reporting of repeated and massive atrocities in for-mer Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in Rwanda.

In earlier eras, wartime rape and other forms of sexual assault on women werethe subject of legal and religious concerns about their ownership and value. Todaywartime rape is recognized by the international community as a war crime. It canalso be prosecuted as a crime against humanity, if evidence confirms wartime rapesresulted from systemic government planning, but crimes against humanity are dif-ficult to establish.

Assertions about soldiers raping during war is not the same as documenting theextent to which this ignominious crime occurs. Knowledge about the number ofwartime rapes depends largely on the willingness of the victims to speak and theavailability of interested agencies to record and investigate complaints. Rarely havethese conditions occurred together. For different reasons—some personal, othersorganizational—both victims and the military seem more willing to remain silentand inert. Only in recent years, for instance, has the world learned that during thespring of 1945, as Russian soldiers advanced and eventually occupied Berlin, theyraped nearly 1 million German women.

The rapes committed by U.S. soldiers during the same war are only now beinginvestigated. Obstacles to this research have included the myth that our World War

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II soldiers are among “the greatest generation,” a scarcity of people and organi-zations willing to be associated with funding for research on this subject, and thefact that military records on their crimes were kept secret for years.

Questions about who is raped are difficult to answer. Some biological and his-torical explanations, including the Bible, indicate that victims are often young andfecund. Rapes committed by German and American soldiers during World War IIsuggest that while age may have been an influential factor of victimization, oppor-tunity coupled with desire were likely more important. In the European Theater ofOperations the rape victims of American soldiers ranged in age between 4 and 75years, suggesting that these rapes resulted from unrestrained individual motivationand meeting inadequately guarded females. Men, too, have been sexually assaultedduring war, but less often than females. Rarely, women with power during warhave encouraged and instructed men to rape.

It would be an error to accept such explanations uncritically because individualacts occur in powerful social contexts. There are, after all, extensive historicalrecords that indicate there are rules and objectives involving wartime rape, includingthe extent to which rape is informally or formally supported by the military. Thefollowing is illustrative:

Mass rape as a cultural and/or genocidal weapon. These rapes are well organized,systematic, and often public. The early and mid-1990s rapes in Bosnia were, ac-cording to some observers, committed as a matter of deliberate policy. Similar ar-guments have been made about the rapes committed by Japanese soldiers inNanking, China, in 1937, during World War II.

Rape to “wound the honor” of the enemy. These rapes are aimed at the malerelatives and friends of the victims. The message is clear—they are wounds to themasculinity, honor, and competence of the enemy soldiers who are unable to protecttheir women.

Rape as part of military culture. Historically, the military has an unusual config-uration of norms about masculinity, sexuality, and women. The confluence of thesefactors may very well be conducive to rape as witnessed by various sexual assaultscandals within the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force between the 1980s and 2004.

Rape, revenge, and elevated masculinity. Sport and war literature abound withaccounts of male behavior that confirm and elevate masculinity. The uniform, anessential element in war, symbolizes membership as well as the range of expectedand approved behavior. Powerful military group expectations and indoctrinationof masculinity may use rape as a gesture of group solidarity. This explanation ofwartime rape has often been applied to the behavior of some American soldiers inthe Vietnam War.

Rape as part of the “rules” of war—pay and pillage. Before armies were createdwith regularized pay, soldiers were often recruited with the promise of booty—including sexual booty—as their reward. This form of payment, including rape,was nonetheless regulated because uncontrolled pillage meant, in effect, the controlof the army had been lost.

Rape as gratuitous/random behavior. All modern armies have regulations pro-hibiting rape. Nonetheless, under certain social conditions, individual soldiers vio-late such rules despite the threat of severe punishment and victimize civilian femalecolleagues. Official military records from the U.S. Army for the European Theaterof Operation (1942–1945) indicate that individuals and gangs of soldiers raped

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civilian females in England, France, and especially Germany, where the enemy’swomen were considered to be fair game. Some of the soldiers found guilty of rapewere executed, and most of the executed soldiers were black.

Some critics argue that by calling rape of females a crime against humanity, theinternational community identified women as the weaker gender in need of protec-tion. Others disagree and claim that it formally brought women within the purviewof humanity for the purpose of prosecuting crimes against humanity. Still othersargue that the actions of the international community on wartime rape as a crimeagainst humanity do not infringe upon the sovereignty of individual states to pros-ecute this crime. Clearly, the prosecution of rape under international law is justicelong overdue. See also: Genocide; My Lai; Rape of Nanking; U.S. Military; WarCrimes.

Suggested Reading: Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945 (New York: Viking, 2002);J. Robert Lilly, La Face Cachee des GI’s: Les viols commis par des soldats americains enFrance, en Angleterre et en Allemagne pendant Ia Seconde Guerre mondiale (Paris: Payot,2003); Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, Rape: A Natural History of Biological Basesof Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000); Georges Vigarello, A History ofRape: Sexual Violence in France from the 16th to the 20th Century (London: Polity Press,2001).

J. ROBERT LILLY

WELLS, IDA B. (1862–1931). Ida B[ell] Wells [Barnett] was an African Americanjournalist and activist who demonstrated that, despite popular misconception, mostAfrican American men who were lynched were not even accused of having rapedwhite women. Her investigative reporting and public speaking were crucial inlaunching the American antilynching crusade. Born a slave in 1862 in Holly Springs,Mississippi, Wells moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and soon became a leading com-munity activist. In 1889 she became co-owner, editor, and publisher of the Mem-phis weekly newspaper Free Speech. Shocked at the March 1892 lynching of threefriends, Wells began investigating lynching cases. Stereotypes of the black malerapist were rife in the post-Reconstruction South, and these fueled vicious lynchings,attended by cheering white crowds, that spread across the South in the late nine-teenth and early twentieth centuries. Wells revealed the stereotypes as both falseand new, concocted by whites when African Americans began gaining political andeconomic power. Her statistical analysis of hundreds of lynchings revealed that,according to white sources, most lynching victims were not accused as rapists. Ina May 1892 editorial, she charged: “Nobody . . . believes the old thread-bare liethat Negro men assault white women.” She also implied that consensual sex some-times occurred between white women and black men. Southern whites’ outrageforced her into exile in the North, where she continued her antilynching campaign.Wells (who married Ferdinand Barnett in 1895) spent the rest of the 1890s re-searching, publishing, and touring to publicize the horrors of lynching. Herpublications include Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), A RedRecord (1895), Mob Rule in New Orleans (1900), and numerous articles and re-printed speeches. See also: Rape-Lynch Syndrome; Southern Rape Complex.

Suggested Reading: Linda O. McMurry, To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B.Wells (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Jacqueline Jones Royster, ed., Southern Hor-

272 WELLS, IDA B.

rors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892–1900 (Boston:Bedford Books, 1997); Patricia Ann Schechter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform,1880–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

DOROTHEA BROWDER

Resource Guide

SUGGESTED READING

This is a brief list of important books on rape. For more selections, see the suggested readingat the end of each encyclopedia entry.

Barstow, Anne Llewellyn, ed. War’s Dirty Secret: Rape, Prostitution, and Other CrimesAgainst Women. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000. This collection of essays byscholars and activists from all over the world discusses sexual slavery, rape as a warcrime, and military culture.

Benedict, Helen. Recovery. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. This is a resourcebook for rape survivors, their families, and friends.

Bevaqua, Maria. Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault.Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000. This book thoroughly examines theroots and impact of the feminist antirape movement. It contains a valuable timeline,appendices, and bibliography.

Brownmiller, Susan. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York: Fawcett Col-umbine, 1975. This pathbreaking study is the first comprehensive examination of rapefrom prehistory to the 1970s.

Buchwald, Emilie, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth. Transforming a Rape Culture. Minne-apolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 1993. This collection of essays by activists, educators,policymakers, and scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds offers suggestions,opinions, and their visions on transforming a rape culture.

Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking. New York: Penguin, 1997. This book is a thorough accountof the invasion and rape of the people of Nanking, China, by the Japanese in 1937.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Ann Wolbert Burgess. Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: AMultidisciplinary Approach. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001. This is a textbook thatprovides information on criminal and forensic techniques.

Lefkowitz, Bernard. Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret of the Perfect Suburb.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. This is a highly readable account of theGlen Ridge, New Jersey, rape case. It is well researched and analyzes the connection be-tween athletes, sports culture, and rape.

McCaughey, Martha. Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Self-defense. New York:

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New York University Press, 1997. This is the only study of the self-defense movementin the context of rape culture.

Parrot, Andrea, and Laurie Bechhofer, eds. Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime. NewYork: Wiley, 1991. This is an excellent overview for educators, psychologists, and lawenforcement professionals on acquaintance and date rape.

Roiphe, Katie. The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Thisbook critiques acquaintance rape discourse. In particular, Roiphe takes issue with the“one in four women will be a victim of rape” statistic as well as the Ms. magazine studyRobin Warshaw’s book is based on.

Smith, Merril D., ed., Sex and Sexuality in Early America. New York: New York UniversityPress, 1998. This collection contains original essays on sex and sex-related issues inearly America. Several of the essays focus on rape and sexual coercion.

———. Sex without Consent: Rape and Sexual Coercion in America. New York: New YorkUniversity Press, 2001. This volume of original essays covers rape in North Americafrom the time of first contact by Europeans to the present.

Tomaselli, Sylvana, and Roy Porter, eds. Rape. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. This is an im-pressive collection of essays by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.

Washaw, Robin. I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report of Recognizing, Fighting, and Sur-viving Date and Acquaintance Rape. New York: Harper, 1988. The first major study ofdate and acquaintance rape, this book draws on both first-person accounts and schol-arly reports.

Wolfthal, Diane. Images of Rape: The “Heroic” Tradition and Its Alternatives. New York:Cambridge University Press, 1999. This book is the first in-depth exploration of rape inWestern art.

WEB SITES

Boston Globe: Spotlight Investigation Abuse in the Catholic Church. http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse. This site was started after the Boston Globe published aseries of articles that uncovered the scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston. Itfeatures this story, along with audio and video material, message boards, and links.It is updated regularly.

Club Drugs.org. http://www.clubdrugs.org/. Sponsored by the National Institute on DrugAbuse (NIDA), this site provides information, trends, and statistics on club drugs andclub drug use.

The Gender Ads Project: Gender and Advertising Database. http://www.genderads.com/. Thissite contains ads with reference to gender. Included are graphic ads depicting womenwho appear to have been raped or sexually assaulted.

History of Rape: Bibliography, compiled by Stefan Blaschke. http://de.geocities.com/history_guide/horb/index.html. This site is a bibliography of books, articles, disser-tations, and conference papers on rape and sexual violence. The bibliography includesmostly English and German titles, but also contains some in other languages. The siteis updated regularly.

Torture Survivors Network. http://www.pacinfo.com/eugene/tsnet/. This site was started bythe nonprofit Rehabilitation Project for Survivors of Torture from Latin America andthe Caribbean. It serves as a forum for torture survivors, therapists, and the generalpublic.

ORGANIZATIONS

Amnesty International322 8th AvenueNew York, NY 10001Phone: 212-807-8400http://www.amnestyusa.org/

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This is the web site of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). Amnesty International is anorganization dedicated to promoting human rights and in preventing abuse, including rapeand sexual violence.

Human Rights Watch350 Fifth Avenue, 34th FloorNew York, NY 10118-3299Phone: 212-290-4700http://www.hrw.org/

Human Rights Watch is an independent nongovernmental organization. It investigates andpublishes information on human rights abuses throughout the world.

National Center for Missing and Exploited ChildrenCharles B. Wang International Children’s Building699 Prince StreetAlexandria, VA 22314-3175Phone: 703-274-3900Hotline: 1-800-THE-LOSThttp://www.missingkids.com/

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is private and nonprofit. The siteprovides information on missing and exploited children, includes a cyber tipline, and offerslinks and resources for parents, law enforcement professionals, attorneys, and the media.

Partnership for a Drug-Free America405 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1601New York, NY 10174Phone: 212-922-1560http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America “is a private, non-profit coalition of professionalsfrom the communications industry.” The site contains information on club and party drugs.

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN)635-B Pennsylvania Avenue, SEWashington, DC 20003Phone: 202-544-1034National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPEhttp://www.rainn.org/

RAINN runs the National Sexual Assault Hotline and provides education about sexual as-sault, its prevention, prosecution, and recovery. The site contains news, links, statistics, andinformation about rape and sexual violence.

Stop Prisoner Rape6303 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 204Los Angeles, CA 90048Phone: 323-653-STOP or 323-653-7867http://www.spr.org/

Stop Prisoner Rape is a human rights organization that seeks to end rape and sexual violenceagainst all prisoners—men, women, and children.

FILMS

See also entries on films—foreign and U.S.—in the encyclopedia.

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Feature Films

The Accused (Johnathan Kaplan, 1988). Based on the Big Dan’s Tavern rape case, the filmstars Jodie Foster as a young woman who is gang raped.

Arrat (Atom Egoyan, 2001). This movie focuses on genocide in Armenia.Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1916). Based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman

(1905), this movie reflects the views of many white Southerners following the CivilWar. It depicts black men as beasts lusting after white women.

The Color Purple (Steven Spielberg, 1985). Based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winningbook of the same title (1982), the story focuses on the struggles of a black womanin the South who is raped by her stepfather and husband.

Deliverance (James Boorman, 1972). Four city men decide to take a canoe trip in the back-woods of Georgia. One of them is sodomized at gunpoint by a deranged mountainman.

Extremeties (Robert A. Young, 1986). A woman fights back after being attacked and raped.Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968). This film contains a scene in which a young

woman is drugged and raped by the devil, as her husband and a band of Satanistslook on.

Talk to Her (Pedro Almodoovar, 2001). A hospital attendant rapes a young woman who isin a coma. In Spanish, with English subtitles.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). Based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize–win-ning novel of the same title (1960), the movie reflects on race relations in a smallsouthern town. Part of the story line concerns a lawyer, Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck),who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960). This is an adaptation of fourteenth-century legendabout a spring that emerges after a young girl is raped and killed. In Swedish, withEnglish subtitles.

Documentaries

The Date Rape Backlash: The Media and the Denial of Rape (Media Education Foundation& FAIR, 1994). This documentary presents a critical examination of the media andbacklash against the concept of date rape.

Dreamworlds 2 (Media Education Foundation, 1995). This documentary focuses on repre-sentations of women in music videos. Viewers should be warned that images of sexualviolence are included.

Male Rape (Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1997). Male survivors of rape speak abouttheir experiences.

Prison Rape: Part of the Punishment? (Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2001). ABCNews anchor Ted Koppel reports on prison rape. Interviews with former prisonersare included.

Rape: A Crime of War (National Film Board of Canada, 1996). This one-hour documentaryfilm focuses on the rape of women in the former Yugoslavia and discusses the issuesinvolved in trying rape as a war crime.

Index

Page numbers in bold type refer to main entries in the encyclopedia.

Abbott, People v., xivAbduction (Kidnapping), 1–2, 8, 113,

142, 255Abelard, Pierre, 36Aberdeen Proving Ground, 260, 261Abortion, xv, 2–4, 154

access to, 108defined, 2morning-after pill and, 4, 129

Absalom, 24Accreditation Council for Services for the

Mentally Retarded and Other Develop-mentally Disabled Persons, 101–102

Accused, character of, 53Accused, The (film), 25, 77–78, 150Acquaintance rape. See Date rape/Ac-

quaintance rapeActus reus, 90Adultery, 114Advertising, images of sex and violence

in, 4–5Aeacus, 133Afghanistan, rape in, 256Africa, HIV/AIDS in, 97–98African Americans, 5–7, 165

enslavement of, 5–6lynching and, 189–191sexual stereotypes of, 6slavery of, 5–6

African National Congress (ANC)Women’s League, 10

African women and girls, 7–11Aftermath (Brison), 127Against Our Will: Men, Women and

Rape (Brownmiller), x, xv, 6, 11–12,30, 186, 223, 269

Aggravated sexual battery, 79“Aimee’s Law,” 264–265Air Force Academy, xvii, 13, 260, 261Albert, Marv, 203Alcohol, 12–13

campus rape and, 32club drugs and, 66, 211date rape and, 13, 54, 63domestic violence and, 61posttraumatic stress disorder and,

153rape and, 9, 172

Allen, Beverly, 28Almodovar, Pedro, 76American Academy of Family Physicians,

147American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),

216American Council on Education, on Cam-

pus Security Act, 34American Legal Institute, proposal for

abortion laws, 3

278 INDEX

American Medical Association (AMA),147–148

abortion and, 3American Osteopathic Association, 148American Psychiatric Association, 148

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders, Fourth Edition(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders (DSM)), 222

American Psycho (Ellis), 117Ames, Jesse Daniel, 191Amnesty International, 155–156, 274–275Amnon, rape of Tamar by, 24Amos, Tori, 170Anal penetration, 121Anal sex, 14Ancient law codes, 14–15Androcentrism, 207Angelou, Maya, 117, 127Anger-excitation rapist, 221, 222Anger-retaliatory rapists, 158, 221, 222Annapolis, Naval Academy at, 260Antipornography activists, 151–152Antirape education, 173Antirape movement, 184Antisodomy laws, 121Antistalking laws, 116Anxiety disorders, 61Apollo, 133Ararat (film), 76Arbitration, The (Menander), 249Arbuckle, Roscoe “Fatty,” 37Arc, 101Arcand, Denys, 75Archer, Christopher, 93Ardea, 193Armies. See U.S. military; War crimes;

Wartime rapeArt, 15–16Art of Love, The (Ovid), 196Aryan race, 165Ascetic movement, 36Asia. See Comfort women; Okinawa rape

case; Rape of NankingAsian American Pacific Islanders Domestic

Violence Resource project, 17Asian Americans, x, 17–18

stereotypes of women, 18Asian Family Violence Report of the

Asian Task Force against DomesticViolence, 17

Asian Fetishes, 18

Asians (Tuan), 250Asphalt (film), 74Association of Southern Women for the

Prevention of Lynching, 191Asterie, 133Athletes, 18–20Attis, myth of, 36Augustine, 207Augustus, xiiiAvishag, threats of rape and, 23Avoidance, 153

Backroads (film), 139Bai, Sonata, 256Bailey, F. Lee, 30Baise Moi (Rape Me) (film), 75Baker, Katharine, 25Baldwin, James, 191Balkans, xvi, 76

history of, 28Ballwalking, 246Bandit Queen (film), 76Bangladesh, rape in, 131Barnett, Ferdinand, 271Barrett, Karen, 242Bates, Ruby, 215–217Battered women, 21–22, 130. See also

Domestic violenceshelters for, 264social services and legal assistance for,

21–22Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de,

62Beauty Myth, The (Wolf), 4Becker, Jean, 75Behn, Aphra, 249Bellon, Yannick, 75Beloved (Morrison), 117Benedict, Helen, 125Berger, Helmut, 74Bergman, Ingmar, 74Berkowitz, Scott, 170Bertolucci, Bernardo, 74Bestiality, 15, 22–23, 101, 114Bhashma, 208Bible, 86, 164, 236, 243, 270

Hebrew, 23, 207Old Testament in, 23–24stories of rape, ix

Biden, Joseph, 185, 264Big Dan’s Tavern case, xv, 24–26Biological sexism, 97

INDEX 279

Birkin, Jane, 75Birth of a Nation (film), xiv, 76, 191, 239Bittaker, Lawrence, 231, 232Black, Roy, 205Black Aesthetic, 166Black-beast rapist, 238

fear of, xBlack Dahlia case, 79Black men, rape by, 180Black nationalism, 166Black-on-black sexual violence, 110Black-on-white rape, 108Black Power Movements, 166Black rapist, myth of, 166Blackstone, Sir William, xiv, 26, 115“Blaming the Victim” Syndrome, 26–28,

42clothing and, 45–46

Bleckley, Jessica, 260Blood analysis, 145Blue Velvet (film), 77Boisrond, Michel, 75Boorda, Jeremy Michael, 247Boorman, James, 77Borowzyk, Walerian, 75Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1, 28–29, 76, 120,

155, 269Bosnian Muslim culture, 28–29Boston Strangler, xv, 29–30Bowers v. Hardwick, 87, 115Boys Don’t Cry (film), 78Boys from St. Vincent, The (film), 76“Boys will be boys” attitude, 93Brando, Marlon, 74Breaking silence as memoir theme, 127Brenton, Howard, 250Bride prices, 1Bridewealth, 265Brison, Susan, 127British Infanticide Act (1922), 108Brody, Anita, 45Brooke, Edward, 30Brownmiller, Susan, x, xv, 6, 11–12, 14,

30–31, 56, 141, 186, 194–195, 223,269

Bruce, Philip Alexander, 238Bryant, Kobe, 19, 36–37Buddhism, 206–207, 208Bundy, Theodore, 231, 232, 263Bunuel, Luis, 75Burden of proof on rape victims, 27

Burgess, Ann Wolbert, 201–202Bush, George, 240

Cairo +5 Conference, 71Calley, William L., Jr., 132Callot, Jacques, 16Campus rape, 32–34Campus Security Act (Clery Act), 34–35Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act

(2000), xviiCampus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of

Rights (1992), xvi, 45Canace, 133Canada

age of consent in, 170rape in, 170

Cantwell, Maria, 185Caring for Victims of Torture (Jaranson),

250Carle, Gilles, 75Carnal knowledge, 182–183Carroll, Lewis, 212Carter, Jimmy, 212Cash, Wilbur J., 109, 237–238Castaneda, Antonia, 96Castration, 35–36, 72, 235Castro, Ramon, 38Casualties of War (film), 77Catherine et compagnie (Catherine and

Company) (film), 75Cat Valium, 111Celebrity rapists, 36–39Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Ser-

vices, 102Central Park Jogger, x, xvi, 39, 109Charitable immunity, doctrine of, 102Charlotte Temple (Rowson), 218–219Chat rooms on the Internet, 146Cheechoo, Shirley, 139Child pornography, xi, 37, 146, 224Child rape, 39–41

Kinsey on, 112laws on, 40

Children, trafficking in, 251–254Child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic

priests, 43Chlamydia, 97Chmura, Mark, 19Christian Council of Ghana, 10Christianity, 206–207Christmas, Joe, 191Cinderella, 69, 70

280 INDEX

Circumstantial evidence, 159City of God, The (Augustine), 207Civil Rights Act (1964), 115–116

Title VII of, 116Civil Rights Act (1991), 116, 230Clansman, The (Dixon), 76, 191, 239Clarissa (Richardson), 218–219Clark, Sophie, 30Clergy

counseling by, 41–42sexual abuse by, xvi, 42–44

Clery, Connie, 45Clery, Howard, 45Clery, Jeanne Ann, xvi, 34, 44–45Clinton, Bill, 126, 233, 264

affair with Lewinsky, 203Clinton, Hillary, 185Clockwork Orange, A (film), 74, 79Clothesline Project, 46Clothing, 45–46

antirape movement and, 184DNA evidence and, 58law enforcement and, 114sexual assault and, 226voyeurism and, 266

Club drugs, 65, 85, 211. See also specificdrugs by name

Coalition of Labor Union Women, 242Co-consciousness, 57Code of Assura, xiii, 15Code of Hammurabi, xiii, 14–15Code of the Nesilim, xiii, 15Coe, Sue, 16Coerced sex, 5, 156, 227–228. See also

Sexual coercionCohn, Martin, 52Coker v. Georgia, xvCollateral evidence, 159Collatinus, 193–194Color Purple, The (Walker), xiColumbus, Christopher, xiv, 138Comfort women, xiv, 46–48, 195Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead), 255Commentaries on the Laws of England

(Blackstone), xiv, 26Commercial sex, 162Committee on Interracial Co-operation,

191Common laws, English, 115Compassionate Care for Female Sexual

Assault Survivors Act, 173Compensatory rapists, 158

Computers and the Internet, 48–49. Seealso Internet

Comstock, Anthony, 50Comstock Act (1873), xiv, 50Conception. See PregnancyConcubines, 1, 207, 235Confidentiality, counseling of rape victims

and, 42Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), 30Consent, 51–52

age of, 170alcohol and, 12child rape and, 40consummation and, 182forcible rape and, 78legal age of, 222male violence and, 73marital rape and, 71, 169sex and, 36sexual abuse, clergy and, 44

Constitution, U.S.First Amendment of, 52, 152Fourteenth Amendment to, 52, 115Sixth Amendment to, 128–129, 199

Contraception. See also AbortionComstock Act and, 50morning-after pill as, 4, 129–130

Controlled Substances Act, 62Convention on genocide (1948), 89–90Cordelier, Jeanne, 75Corroboration requirements, 187–188Co-survivors, 70Coughlin, Paula, 246, 247, 259Counseling. See Rape counselingCoverture, 26, 122Cox Broadcasting Corporation v. Cohn,

xv, 52, 125Crabs, 97Credibility, 52–53, 188, 205

rape-murder and, 130–131Crick, Francis, 58Crime Awareness and Campus Security

Act (1990), xvi, 34Criminal geographic targeting (CGT), 91Croatia, 29, 155Cross-dressing, 89Cult of True Womanhood, 234Cyber stalking, 116Cycle of Violence, 21

Dali, Salvador, 74Dallager, John, 260Damned, The (film), 74

INDEX 281

Darrow, Clarence, xiv, 124Darwin, Charles, 164Date rape/Acquaintance rape, 54–56

alcohol and, 13, 32, 54, 63defined, 54distinguishing between stranger rape

and, 55false claims of, 212legislation on, xvimedia coverage of, 125popular culture and, 150prevalence of, 202seriousness of, 184underreporting of, 8, 189

Date rape drugs, 38, 65, 85, 225. See alsolistings by drug names

Daughters of Bilitis, 87Davis, Angela, 6Davis v. Monroe County Board of Educa-

tion, 215Dayton Agreement (1995), 29Debbie Smith Bill (2001), 185Declaration of the Rights of Mentally Re-

tarded Persons, 101–102Declaration of Tokyo (1975), 250Deep Throat (film), 242Deliverance (film), 77Deneuve, Catherine, 74De Palma, Brian, 77Depression, 61DeSalvo, Albert. See Boston StranglerDeuteronomy, 23

Book of, xiiirape laws appear in, 207

Deutsch, Helene, xv, 56, 72de Vega, Lope, 249Devi, Phoolan, 76Deviate sexual intercourse, 79Digital rape, 79Dinah, story of, in Genesis, 23–24Dines, Gail, 151Dionysus (Bacchus), 12–13Direct evidence, 159Disabled victims. See VictimsDisasters of War, The (Goya), 16Dissociative identity disorder (DID), 56–

57Dixon, Thomas, 76, 117, 165, 191, 239DNA collection and evidence, 57–60, 185DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act (2002),

185DNA testing, 145Dodgson, Charles, 212

Doe v. Bolton, 3Dog, Mary Crow, 139Dolus specialis, 90Domestic violence, 17, 60–61. See also

Battered womenathletes and, 19defined, 21

Domineering sex, 22–23Donne, John, 207Double standard. See Sexual double stan-

dardDouglass, Frederick, 191Drake, Temple, 77Droit de cuissage, 62Droit du seigneur, 62Drug-facilitated sexual assault, 211, 214,

225–227Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Pun-

ishment Act of 1996, xvi, 62–63Drugs

club, 65, 85, 225date rape, 38, 65, 85, 225

Dryope, 133Du Bois, W.E.B., 191Dukakis, Michael, 240Duluth model, 61Dutroux, Marc, xviiDuval, Daniel, 75Dworkin, Andrea, 63–64, 120, 144, 151

Early History of Rome (Livy), 196Ecstasy, 63, 65–66, 85, 111Education, U.S. Department of, Office of

Post-Secondary Education, 34Educational Amendment (1972), Title IX

of, 116Edwards, Anne, 73Egoyan, Atom, 76Egypt, rape in, 10Ejaculation, 66–67, 151–152EKG, 111Elderly victims. See VictimsEllis, Bret Easton, 117Emergency contraception, access to, 4English common laws, 115Ensler, Eve, 249Equal Employment Opportunity Act

(1972), 116Equiano, Olaudah, 5–6Eskridge, Robert, 260Espada, Martın, 119Estrich, Susan, xvi, 55, 203, 206. See also

Real Rape

282 INDEX

Ethiopia, rape in, 10Ethnic cleansing, 28, 67–68, 90, 120,

165, 263Eugenics, 165, 223Euripides, 249Europa, 133European Theater of Operations (ETO)

(World War II), rape in, xv, 270–271Evidence

circumstantial, 159collateral, 159direct, 159DNA collection and, 57–60, 185forensic, 159rules of, 186, 212–213

Exoticism, xExpress consent, 51External sphincter, 66Extremities (film), 78Extremities (Mastrosimone), 249

Fair warning, 258Fairy tales, 69–70False rape claim, 160–161Familial shame, 17Familism, 96Family, 70–71Family stigma, 243Fantasies, 71–72

in advertising, 5Faulkner, William, 77, 117, 191Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform

Crime Reports, 224Federal Education Records and Privacy

Act, 33Federal Sexual Abuse Act (1986), xviFederation of African Women Education-

ists (FAWE), 10Felony, 113Felton, Rebecca Latimer, 190Female Eunuch, The (Greer), 12–13Feme covert status, 26Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), xv,

84Feminism

liberal, 73, 144Marxist, 73poststructural, 73radical, 73

Feminist movement, x, 30, 72–74, 146gays and lesbians and, 88rape and, 77, 125second-wave, 84, 174, 223

Fiji, rape in, 169Films

foreign, 74–76U.S., 76–78

Finley, Lucinda, 251First Amendment right to free press, 52,

152Fixated sex, 22Flashbacks, 153Flunitrazepam, 62Flynn, Errol, 37Foote, Horton, 77Force doctrine, 206Forcible rape, 78–79

laws on, 240–241Forcible sexual act, 34Foreign-object rape, 79–80Forensic evidence, 159Fortescue, Grace, 124Foster, Jodie, 25Fourteenth Amendment, 52, 115Francis, Leslie, xFrankfurt School, 150Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public

Schools, 116Fraternal polyandry, 255Fraternities, 80–81, 168, 267Freedom dues, 105, 106Freedom Summer, 30Free love movement, 81–82Freud, Sigmund/Freudian theory, xiv, 14,

56, 72, 82–83, 99, 104, 183, 219,237

Freud Archives, 82Friedan, Betty, xv, 84Friedan, Carl, 84

Galen, 155Galli, 36Gallongs of Arunachal Pradesh (India),

255Galton, Francis, 222–223Gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB), 38, 63,

85–86, 225Gang rape, 79, 86–87, 109

athletes and, 19brutality and, 77fraternities and, 81, 168group voyeurism and, 267military and, 13My Lai and, 131–132suggestion of, in advertising, 4teenagers and, 8

INDEX 283

Gay men, rape of, 121Gays and lesbians, 87–88

as survivors of prison rape, 156Gein, Edward, 232Gender roles, 88–89

fairy tales and, 69–70General Counsel Working Group, 13Genetic fingerprinting, 59Geneva Conventions (1949), 268Genghis Khan, 1Genital warts, 97Genocide, 1, 67, 89–91, 90, 165

rape-murder in, 8, 131Genovese, Kitty, 91

rape-murder of, xvGentleman rapist, 221Geographic profiling, 91–92George v. State of Mississippi, 235Ghanaian Criminal Code, 9–10Ghana National Commission on Women

and Development, 10Gibeah, rape of anonymous concubine in,

23, 24Gilbert, Slvanus Taco, III, 260Gill, Marcus, 142Gina (film), 75Girls, African, 7–11Glen Ridge (NJ) rape case, xvi, 92–93Gonorrhea, 97Goya, Francisco de, 16Grass, Gunther, 75Greek mythology

rape in, 117, 132, 145sexual mutilation in, 231

Greek New Comedy, 248–249Green Bombers, 8Green Man, 30Greer, Germaine, 12Griffith, D.W., 76, 239Grimm, Percy, 191Grimm Brothers, 70Grisham, John, 77Griswold v. Connecticut, 52Grober, Bryant, 93Grosbard, Ulu, 79

Hadrian, 35Hale, Sir Matthew, xiv, 26, 94–95, 122,

181, 186, 188Harlem Renaissance, 166Harp, Rodrico, 142Harris, Angela, 186

Harris, Paula, 39. See also Central ParkJogger

Havelock-Ellis, Henry, 146Hawkins, Alfred, 216Hawkins, Yusef, 240Hays, William H., 77Hays Code, 77Health Care Financing Administration,

102Hebrew Bible, 23, 207Henry, Joseph, 44–45Henry II, King of France, 107Henry VIII, King of England, 236Heterosexism, 88Hill, Anita, sexual harassment charges by,

203Hinduism, 206–207Hindu literature, 208–209Hippocratic Oath, xiiiHispanics/Latinos, x, 95–97History of the Pleas of the Crown, The

(Hale), xiv, 26, 94Hitler, Adolf, 67HIV/AIDS, 40, 97–99

virginity and, 9Hobbes, Thomas, 249Hoffman, Frederick L., 238Holder, Elma, 102Holmstrom, Lynda Lytle, 201–202Holocaust. See Ethnic cleansing; Genocide;

Nazis; War crimesHomoeroticism, 99Homophobia, 88, 121Homosexual rape, 30, 99–101, 121, 156,

182Homosexuality, 14, 87, 99, 114, 223Honor killings, ixHoover, Herbert, 124Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca, 138Horney, Julie, 55Horney, Karen, 56, 72Horton, Willie, 240Hospitals and nursing homes, sexual as-

sault in, 101–102Hostile work environment, 115, 116, 230Hsu-Li, Magdalen, 18Hudud Ordinance, 208Human Genome Project, 165Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, ixHuman rights organizations, 250Human Rights Watch, 8, 97, 275Hyperarousal, 153Hysteria, 82, 83

284 INDEX

Illegal sex acts, 114–115Immigration, 17–18, 165Immoral Tales (film), 75Implicit right to privacy, 52Implied consent, 51, 94Incest, 8, 83, 103–105, 114

dissociative identity disorder and, 57Indentured servitude, 105–107, 177I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report

on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviv-ing Date and Acquaintance Rape, 54,242

Infanticide, 107–108, 154Initiation, gang rape as form of, 86Institution of higher education (IHE),

campus rape at, 32–34Intercourse (Dworkin), 63International Association for Healthcare

Security & Safety, 101International Association for the Treat-

ment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO),223

International Commission of Jurists, 47International Criminal Court, 90International Criminal Tribunal for

Rwanda, 48, 90, 170International Criminal Tribunal for the

former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 29, 48,68, 90

International Humanitarian Law, 268,269

International Labor Defense (ILD) wingof the Communist Party of theUnited States, 216

International Military Tribunal for theFar East, 268

International Organization of Migration(IOM), 252

Internet, 48–49bestiality and, 23chat rooms on, 146child pornography on, xviipornographic sites, 143

Interracial rape, 76–77, 108–110, 137,138

Interracial sexual relations, 140Intimate partner violence, 17Intraracial rape, 6–7Intrusion, 153Involvement, desire against, 91Irving, John, 117Islam, 114, 206–207, 208

Jackson, Michael, 37Jack the Ripper, 231, 232Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children

and Sexually Violent Offender Regis-tration Act (1994), 223

James, King of England, 107Jamestown, Virginia, xiv, 5, 105Janikowski, Sebastian, 38Jaranson, J.M., 250Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Secu-

rity Policy and Campus Crimes Sta-tistics Act (1998), xvii, 34

Jeffreys, Alec, 59Jeopardy surface, 92Jeremiah, threats of rape and, 23Jerome, 207Jerusalem, threats of rape and, 23Jewish clergy, counseling of rape victims

by, 42Jewish literature, 207Jewish women, rape of, 139–140Joint Commission on Accreditation of

Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO),102

Jones, James, 112Jonson, Ben, 249Jordan, Winthrop, 238Journal d’une femme de chambre (Diary

of chambermaid) (film), 75Judaism, 206–207Judd, Lawrence, 124Judeo-Christian monotheistic tradition,

114, 236

Kalven, Jamie, 127Kama Sutra, 14Kanka, Maureen, 126Kanka, Megan, 126Kanka, Richard, 126Kansas v. Hendricks, 223Kaplan, Jonathan, 150Kapur, Shekar, 76Karadzic, Radovan, 120Kauka ritual, 86Kelly, R., 37Kennedy, Edward, 37Kennedy, Michael, 37Kenya

Coalition of Violence against Womenin, 10

rape in, 10Ketamine, 85, 111–112, 225Kidnapping. See Abduction (Kidnapping)

INDEX 285

Kika (film), 76Kinsey, Alfred C., 72, 112Kleist, Heinrich von, 75Kollwitz, Kathe, 16Kosinski, Jerzy, 79Kosovo, battle of, 28, 68Koss, Mary P., 227–228, 242Krafft-Ebing, Richard von, 146, 223Kristallnacht, xv, 139, 149Kubrick, Stanley, 74, 79Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 191

La Barca, Calderon, 249La Derobade (The Evasion) (film), 75Ladies Club, The, 171Lakota Woman (Dog), 139L’amour viole (Love Violates) (film), 75Lanier, United States v., xviiLast Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals

and the Century’s End (Roiphe), 212Last Tango in Paris (film), 74Lauzon, Jean-Claude, 76Law, Bernard, 43Law enforcement, 113–114Lawrence, John, 115Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, 87Lawrence v. Texas, xvii, 115, 223, 236,

237Laws

antisodomy, 121antistalking, 116on child rape, 40English Common, 115on forcible rape, 240–241marital exemption, 21–22, 94, 122–

123rape, ix–x, 40–41, 51–52, 94, 169–170,

182, 186–189, 202, 210, 240–241rape shield, 27–28, 128–129, 160, 188,

199sex psychopath, 223sexual predator commitment, 223sodomy, 87tribal, 254–257

Lebensraum, 67Leda and the Swan, 117, 133Ledet, Kendrick, 142Lee, Harper, 77Legislation

illegal sex acts, 114–115sexual harassment, 115–116

Lehigh University, rape-murder of JeanneAnn Clery at, 44–45

L’Ete meurtrier (One Deadly Summer)(film), 75

Levite, Ephraim, concubine, 86Lewinsky, Monica, 203Lex talionis, 14Liberal feminism, 73, 144Liberta, People v., 123Liddell, Alice, 212Life Is a Dream (Calderon), 249Light in August (Faulkner), 191Literature, World and American, 116–

118Little Red Riding Hood, 69–70Livy, 193, 196Lobotomies, 223Locke, John, 249Louis XIII, King of France, 103Louis XIV, King of France, 69Lowe, Rob, 37Lucretia, rape of, xiii, 15, 117Luster, Andrew, 37Lynch, David, 77Lynchings, x, 6, 183, 189–191, 271. See

also Rape-lynch scenario

Machismo, 96, 119–120MacKinnon, Catharine A., 63, 120–121,

144, 151, 203Maimonides, 207Male-on-male rape, 167Male rape, 121–122

film protrayal of, 76homosexuality and, 99in prison, 7, 78–79victims of, 98

Male survivors, 98Maloney, Carolyn, 185Malpractice, 101Manly, Alex, 239Mann Act, 224Maori law, 255Marchiano, Linda, 242Marianismo, 96Marijuana, 111Marital exemption laws, 21–22, 94, 122–

123Marital rape, xv, 122–124

consent and, 71, 179force and, 169spousal exemption and, 21–22, 94, 122–

123undereporting of, 8

Marital unity, doctrine of, 26

286 INDEX

Marquise von O, The (film), 75Marriage, purpose of, xiiiMarriage of Figaro, The (Beaumarchais),

62Married Women’s Property Acts, 122Mars, 193Marx, Karl, 72Marxist feminism, 73Masochism, 56Massie, Thalia, xiv, 124Massie, Thomas, 124Massie case, 124Masson, Jeffrey, 82–83Mastrosimone, William, 249Masturbating, 151–152Matrilineal kinship systems, 138Matsui, Iwana, 195Mattachine Society, 87May, Joe, 74McCauley, Robbie, 249McCray, Antron, 39MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphe-

tamine), 63. See also EcstasyMead, Margaret, 255Media, 124–126

Central Park Jogger rape case and, 39,109

child rape and, 40coverage of celebrity rapists by, 37–38Cox decision and, xv, 52, 125date rape and, 125exposure of rape in Bosnia-

Herzegovina, 29rape case coverage by, 7, 9, 25rape shield laws and, 199

Medical consumer advocacy movement,101

Medina, Ernest, 132Medroxyprogesterone (MPA), 35Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation, 126Megan’s Law, xvi, 93, 126, 233Meili, Trisha, x, 39. See also Central Park

JoggerMelantho, 133Memoirs, 127Men Can Stop Rape, 176Menader, 249Mendieta, Ana, 16Mengele, Josef, 67Mens rea, 90Mental disabilities, people with, 127–

128Mental retardation, rape and, 92–93

Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 116Metis, 133Mexican Valium, 62Micheaux, Oscar, 76Michigan v. Lucas, xvi, 128–129Middle Ages, women in, 27Military rape, 13Millett, Kate, 12Milosevic, Slobodan, 29, 68Mind of the South (Cash), 237–238Mirbeau, Octave, 75Miseries of War, The (Callot), 16Mishmis of the Lohit Valley (India), 255Misoprostol, 4“Mistake of age” defense, 241Mitchell, John, 191Model Minority stereotype, 17Modus operandi, 92Moetotolo, 256Mohr, James, 2Moliere, 249Molina, Tirso de, 249Money, John, 88Moniz, Egas, 223Montesquieu, Baron de, 115Montgomery, Olin, 216, 217Moral degeneracy, 223Morella, Constance (R–MD), 173Morgan, Robin, 151, 167Morning After: Sex, Feminism and Fear

on Campus, The (Riophe), 54, 211–212

Morning-after pill, 4, 129–130Morrison, People v., xivMorrison, Toni, 117Moseley, Winston, 91Mourir a tue-tete (A Scream from Silence)

(film), 75Movie Production Code, 77Movies. See Films, foreign; Films, U.S.Ms. (magazine), 242Ms. Foundation for Women, 242Muehlenhard, Charlene, 228Mulligan, Robert, 76–77Multiple personality disorder. See Dissoci-

ative identity disorderMurder, 130–131Muslim clerics, counseling of rape victims

by, 42Muslim women, sex before marriage and,

28My Lai, 131–132

INDEX 287

Mythology, 132–134Myths. See Rape Myths

Nadler, Jerrold, 185Namibia

age of consent in, 170rape in, 169

Nanking, China, 270Nanking, rape of. See Rape of NankingNational Association for the Advancement

of Colored People (NAACP), 191,216

National Center for Education Statistics,214–215

National Center for Missing and Ex-ploited Children, 48, 275

National Center for the Analysis of Vio-lent Crime (NCAVC), 157–158

National Center for the Prevention andControl of Rage, 242

National Citizens’ Coalition for NursingHome Reform (NCCNHR), 102

National Coalition against Sexual Assault(NCASA), 264

National Crime Victimization Survey(NCVS), 135–136, 215, 263–264

National Domestic Violence Hotline, 264National Institute for Mental Health, 242National Organization for Women

(NOW), xv, 34–35, 84, 136–137,264

National Sexual Assault Hotline, 171,198

National Violence against Women Survey,60

National Women’s Political Caucus, 242Native Americans, 137–139, 165, 180–

181Nazis, 139–140

eugenics experiments conducted by, 67Necrophilia, 114Negro rule, 117Nes de la haine (Born of Hatred) (film),

76New Bedford Falls, Massachusetts, 24–25Newsgroups, 48Newspapers. See MediaNew York Radical Feminists (NYRF), 30,

140–141, 173Nichols, Mary, 81–82Nicholson, Jack, 37Nigeria, rape in, 10Night Zoo (film), 76

Nixon, Richard M., 132Norris, Clarence, 216, 217Norris, Roy, 231, 232Norris v. Alabama, 216Nuremberg Charter, 268Nursing Home Monitors, 102Nursing homes, 101–102

sexual assault in, 101–102Nyingma lore, 208

Oedipal complex, 219Okinawa rape case, 142–143Old Testament, 166Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act

(OBRA), 102One Night: Realities of Rape (Winkler),

171Online chat rooms, 48On the Origin of the Species by Means of

Natural Selection (Darwin), 164Opportunistic sex, 22Oral penetration, 121Oral sex, 121, 143

forced, 80Organizations, 274–275Organized crime, involvement in traffick-

ing, 252Orgasm, 66Ottoman Empire, 28Ovid, 117, 193, 196–197

Paglia, Camille, 144Painted Bird, The (Kosinski), 79Pakistan, rape in, 256Papua, New Guinea, 256Paquin, Ronald, 12Paraguay, age of consent in, 170Paraphilia, 266Paraurethral glands, 67Parkinson’s disease, 172Parricide, 83Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 275Party rape, 32Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 75Paternity, 154Paternity testing, 145Patriarchy, 100, 145–146, 196, 234

enforcement of, 30Patterson, Haywood, 216, 217Pawlowics, Sala, 139Peck, Gregory, 77Peckinpah, Sam, 77, 150Pedophilia, 43, 146–147, 222

288 INDEX

“Peeping Tom,” 266Peleus, 133Pelvic examinations, nonconsensual, on

anesthetized women, 148Pelvic inflammatory disease, 97Pentateuch, 114Pepi, Luci, Bom (film), 76Perrault, Charles, 69–70Perron, Clement, 75Persephone, 133Phencyclidine (PCP), 111Philips, Kim, 170Philomela, 231Physician-patient relationship, 148Physicians/medical professionals, 147–

149Pierce-Baker, Charlotte, 127Piercy, Marge, 171Pittsburgh Action against Rape, 173Plautus, 249Pogrom, 11, 149–150Poirier, Anne-Claire, 75Polanski, Roman, 37, 74Political Left, 73Political Right, 73Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), 59Popular culture, 144, 150–151Pornography, 5, 63, 151–152

defined, 151Web sites for, 49, 143

Poseidon, 133Poststructural feminism, 73Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 153–

154abductions and, 2comfort women and, 47counseling for, 148, 171, 172domestic violence and, 61rape trauma syndrome as form for, 173–

174, 202in survivors, 244torture and, 251

Poussin, Nicolas, 15Powell, Ozie, 216, 217Powell v. Alabama, 216Power-assertive rapists, 158, 221–222Power-reassurance rapists, 158, 221Pradesh, Madhya, 256Predators. See Sexual predatorsPregnancy, 154–155

rape and, 9Premature ejaculation, 66Prevention. See Rape prevention

Price, Victoria, 215–217Prichard, James Cowles, 222Priest pedophilia, xviiPrima note, 145–146Prison rape, 7, 155–157

gays and lesbians in, 156of males, 7, 78–79power and, 30

Privacy Protection for Rape Victims Act(1978), 212

Pro, Philip M., 247Profiling, 157–159Project AWARE (Asian Women Advocat-

ing Respect and Empowerment), 17Prosecution, 159–162

of acquaintance rape, 55of campus rape, 33consent and, 51–52DNA collection and, 57–60of gang rapes, 86of rape cases, 25

Prostitution, 40, 72, 162–163, 235state-sponsored, 253

Protective order, 22Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish

Trafficking in Persons, EspeciallyWomen and Children, 253–254

Provencher, Raymonde, 76Psamathe, 133Psychoanalysis, 82, 83

seduction in, 219Psychology of Women, The (Deutsch), xv,

72Psychopathia Sexualis (Krafft-Ebing),

223Pulp Fiction (film), 150Punishment against Incest Act (1908), 104Puritanism, 178, 179

Quickening, 2Quid pro quo, 115, 116, 230Qur’an, 208

R-2, 62Race and racism, 164–167, 183

power and, 30punishment for rape-murder and, 131relationship between rape and, 7

Race defilement, 139Racist fictions, 165Radical feminism, 73Radical racists, 190Ramsted Amendment (1992), 33

INDEX 289

Rapecauses of, 167–169chronology of selected related events,

xiii–xviicriminalization of, 9–10definitions of, 169–170demographics of, 9media coverage of, 7, 9physical reality of, ixpublic speak-out against, xvrelationship between racism and, 7statistics on, 70–71, 199–201successful prosecution of, 159–162of virgin, 14–15

Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women,141

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN), 170–171, 174, 198

Rape, Bedford (Coe), 16Rape camps, 29Rape complex, 238Rape counseling, x, 171–173. See also

Rape crisis centersRape crisis centers, x, xi, 173–174, 184, 263

date rape and, 125establishment of, 10, 159first, xvmale rape and, 121–122NOW and, 136rape education and, 175survivors and, 244

Rape culture, 150, 174–175Rape education, 175–177, 198Rape fantasies, 56Rape history in the United States

seventeenth century, 177–179eighteenth century, 179–181nineteenth century, 181–183twentieth century, 183–185

Rape kit, 58–59, 114, 147, 185Rape Kit DNA Analysis Backlog Elimina-

tion Act (2002), 185Rape law, 182, 186–189, 210

alteration of, ix–xconcept of consent in, 51in Denmark, 169–170in England, 94, 170forcible, 240–241in Germany, 169martial exemptions from, 123modern, 51–52reforms in, ix, 40–41, 186–189, 202Southern, 235

Rape-lynch scenario, 189–191Rape-murders, xv, 130Rape myths, 151, 184, 191–193, 210–211

battered women and, 22clothing and, 45–46fairy tales and, 70rape against her will as, 27rape culture and, 175

Rape of a Sweet Young Girl, The (LeViol d’une jeune fille douce) (film),75

Rape of Europa (Titian), xivRape of Lucrece, The (Shakespeare), 117Rape of Lucretia, 193–194Rape of Nanking, xiv, 131, 194–196Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus (Ru-

bens), xivRape of the Sabine Women, 15, 196–197,

262“Rape Poem” (Piercy), 171Rape prevention, 175, 197–199

classes on, 244policies on, 13programs on, 168

Rape reforms, 160Rape shield laws, 27–28, 128–129, 160,

188, 199, 205Rape Speak Out, 173Rape statistics, 70–71, 199–201Rape survivors, ix, 28, 172–173Rape trauma syndrome, 148, 171–172,

173–174, 201–203, 244Rape trials, 184, 187, 203–206

resistance and, 51Rape victims, 70–71, 159

blaming of, 41–42celebrity rapists and, 38desire for abortion, 2identification of, 52portrayal of, 27stigmas against, xsubgroups of, x–xitestimony of, 161

Rapists. See Celebrity rapists; Serial rapeand serial rapists; Sex offenders; Sex-ual predators

Rassenschande, 140Rave parties, 63, 65, 85Rayes, Matias, 39Real Rape: How the Legal System Victim-

izes Women Who Say No (Estrich),xvi, 55, 203, 206

Recovered-memory movement, 82–83

290 INDEX

Redstockings, 242Reich, Wilhelm, 72Reidhead v. State, 210Religion, 206–209Religious contexts, castration in, 36Rembrandt Van Rijn, 15Renaissance, 249Reporting. See Media; Rape shield lawsRepulsion (film), 74Resident’s Bill of Rights, 102Resistance, 209–211

comfort women and, 47requirement, 186

Restriction fragment length polymorphism(RFLP), 59

Richardson, Kevin, 39Richardson, Samuel, 218–219Rideout, Greta, 123Rideout, John, 123Roberson, Willie, 216, 217Rodrıquez, Luis J., 119Roe v. Wade, xv, 3Rohmer, Eric, 75Rohypnol, 62, 63, 65, 211, 225Roiphe, Katie, 54, 211–212Rolling, Danny, 231, 232Roman Catholic priests, sexual abuse of

children by, 43Roman mythology, rape in, 117, 132Romans in Britain (Brenton), 250Romulus, 196Roofie, 62Rossmo, Kim, 91Rowson, Susanna, 218–219RU-486, 4. See also Morning-after pillsRubens, Peter Paul, xivRules of evidence, 186, 212–213Russell, Diana, 123Rwanda, 76

genocide of Tutsis in, 68rape in, 97tribunals for, 269war trials in, xvii

Sabine women, rape of, xiii, 117, 263Sadistic rapists, 158Sadomasochistic ritual of submission and

dominance, 14Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Commu-

nities Act (1994), 214–215Safety-valve sex, 22Salaam, Yusef, 39Sally’s Rape (McCauley), 249

Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom (film), 75Samaria, threats of rape and, 23Samoa, 255–256Sanctuary (Faulkner), 77, 117Santana, Raymond, 39Sarah, threats of rape and, 23Satyr, 12Scabies, 97Scherzer, Kevin, 92, 93Scherzer, Kyle, 92, 93Schlondorff, Volker, 75Schmacher, Joel, 77Schneider, Maria, 74Schools, 214–215

sexual harassment in public, 116Scientific racism, 164–165Scottsboro Boys case, xiv, 215–217Scottsboro Defense Committee, 216Secondary rape, 75, 113, 217–218, 264Security on Campus, 45Seduction, 218–219Seduction hypothesis, 82, 219Self-defense/self-defense courses, 219–221,

244Self-stigma, 243Serbia, rape in, 131Serial rape and serial rapists, 92, 158,

221–222DNA evidence in, 59

Servitude, distinctions between slaveryand, 105–106

Sexism, biological, 97Sexist stereotypes, 192Sex offenders, 222–224

castration and, 35Sex psychopath laws, 223Sexual abuse

by clergy, xv, xvisigns of, 128

Sexual Abuse Act of 1986, 224Sexual abuse pervert, 100Sexual assault, 224–225

date rape drugs and, 38, 65, 85, 225DNA evidence in cases, 57–60drug-facilitated, 211, 214, 225–227in health care facilities, 101

Sexual assault evidence kit (SAEK), 185Sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE),

185Sexual Behavior in the Human Female

(Kinsey), 112Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Kin-

sey), 112

INDEX 291

Sexual coercion, 5, 156, 227–228Sexual crimes, castration as punishment

for, 35–36Sexual double standard, 228–229, 235Sexual harassment, 10, 115–116, 150,

224, 229–231Sexual inhibition, 12Sexual mutilation, 231–232Sexual orientation, 100Sexual Personae (Paglia), 144Sexual Politics (Millett), 12Sexual predators, 2, 45–46, 232–234

commitment laws for, 223Sexual psychopath, 233Sexual seizure, 1Sexual servitude, 47Sexual slavery, 40Sexual stereotypes of African Americans,

6Sexual torture, 250Sexual violence, Latino history for, 95–

96Sexually explicit material, 49Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), 97,

156. See also HIV/AIDSSexually violent predator, 233Shakespeare, William, 117, 249Sharia, xiii, 36Shechem, son of Hamor, 23She Still Haunts Me: A Novel (Roiphe),

212Shriner, Earl, 232Silent Witness (television movie), 25Simpson, Delmar, 261Sixth Amendment rights, 128–129, 199Skene’s glands, 67Slavec, Laurie, 260Slave Farm, 49Slavery, xi, 234–236

of African Americans, 5–6comfort women and, 46–48distinctions between servitude and, 105–

106sexual, 40

Slaves, x, 177–178Sleeping Beauty, 69, 70Slesers, Anna, 29–30Smith, Debbie, Bill (2001), 185Smith, John N., 76Smith, Lillian, 191Smith, William Kennedy, 37, 159, 203,

205Snow White, 70

Social deviancy, 164Socialization, gender role of, 88–89Social services and legal assistance for

battered women, 21–22Social stigma, 243Societal norms, 266Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to

Children, 104Sodomites, 166Sodomy, 236–237

alcohol and, 13laws against, 40, 115of men, 100, 169, 182, 225overturn of laws on, 87

Some Asians (Tuan), 250South Africa

child rape in, 41rape in, 10, 98

Southern Horrors (Well), xivSouthern rape complex, 109, 237–240“Speak Out on Rape,” 140Speak-Out Against Rape, 30Special K, 111Spohn, Cassia, 55Spousal abuse, defined, 21Spousal exemptions

abolishment of, 21–22clauses in rape laws on, xvi

Srebrenica, 29Stalking

cyber, 116laws against, 116

State-sponsored prostitution, 253Statute of Westminster I, xiv, 170Statute of Westminster II, xiv, 170Statutory rape, 34, 48, 78, 182–183, 240–

242St. Donat, rape of women in, 140Steinem, Gloria, 242–243Steinem, Leo, 242Steinem, Ruth Nuneviller, 242Stereotypes of Asian American women, 18Stigma, x, 8, 243, 244

family, 243social, 243

Stirling, Yates, 124Stockman, Steve, 112Stonewall Riots (1969), 87Stop Prisoner Rape, 275Story of Temple Drake, The (film), 77Stranger rape, 32, 100

distinguishing between acquaintancerape and, 55

292 INDEX

Straw Dogs (film), 77, 150Streaking, 246Streetcar Named Desire, A (Williams),

249Struckman-Johnson, Cindy, 121, 156Struckman-Johnson, David, 121St. Teresa of Avila, 207Student Right to Know and Campus Secu-

rity Act (Clery Act) (1990), xvi, 34Stupid Ludmilla, 79Subha, 208Subhadra, 208Suicide, rape victims and, 172Sullivan, Mary, 30Survivors, 243–245

acquaintance rape and, 54–55of male rape, 121pressing of charges by, 114of sexual harassment, 230–231

Swaziland, age of consent in, 170Syphilis, 97

Tailhook Association, 246–247Tailhook Convention of 1991, xvi, 246–

247, 259, 261Take Back the Night movement, 136,

176, 184, 247–248Tales of Times Past with Morals (Per-

rault), 69–70Talk to Her (film), 76Talmud, xiiiTamar, 243

rape of, xiii, 23, 24, 207Tarantino, Quentin, 150Tarquinius, Collantinus, 193–194Taureau (film), 75Taygete, 133Teena, Brandon, 78Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 249Terence, 249Tereus, 231Terrell, Mary Church, 191Thailand, child rape in, 41Theater, 248–250Thelma and Louise (film), 78Theophane, 133Therapeutic abortions, 3Thetis, 133Thomas, Clarence, sexual harassment

charges against, 203Till, Emmett, 11, 31Tillman, Benjamin, 238Time to Kill, A (film), 77

Timmendequas, Jesse, 126Tin Drum, The (film), 75Titian, xivTitle IX, 215Tito, Marshall Josip Broz, 68Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), 249To Kill a Mockingbird (film), 77Tokyo Charter, 268Tom Thumb, 69Tone, Andrea, 50Torture, 250–251Totem and Taboo (Freud), 83Trafficking, xi, 41

in women and children, 251–254Transforming a Rape Culture, 174Transvestites, 89Tribal customs and laws, 254–257Trible, Phyllis, 24Trojan Women, The (Euripides), 249True Confessions (film), 79Tsogyel, Yeshe, xiii, 208Tuan, Alice, 250Turkish code of law, 80Tutsis, Rwandan genocide of, 68Twin Peaks (television series), 77Tyson, Mike, xvi, 19, 37, 110, 159

Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog)(short film), 74

Uniform Crime Reports, 135United Nations

antitrafficking protocol, 254Children’s Fund, 40Convention against Transnational Or-

ganized Crime, 254Convention for the Suppression of the

Traffic in Persons and of the Exploi-tation of the Prostitution of Others,254

Human Rights Commission, comfortwomen and, 46–47

United States v. Lanier, 258–259United States v. Morrison, 264Upanishads, 208–209Urethral sphincter, 66U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 43U.S. military, 259–261

Vagina Monologues, The (Ensler), xi,249

Vanbrugh, John, 249Vander Schaaf, Derek J., 246Van Susteren, Greta, 37

INDEX 293

VAWnet, 54Venereal disease, comfort women and, 46–

47Venus, 193Versed, 211Vestal virgin, 265Victims, 262–264. See also Survivors

behavior of, 183character of, 53identifications of, 125

Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 56Vietnamese women, rape of, 18Violence against Women, Office of, xvi,

264Violence against Women Act (VAWA)

(1994), xvi, 136, 173, 224, 264–265Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S.

Public Schools: 1996–97 (report),215

Virgin, rape of, 14–15, 23Virginia Company, 105Virgin Spring (film), 74Virgins/Virginity, 9, 265–266

fetishization of, 219Visconti, Luchino, 74Vitamin K, 111Volpone (Jonson), 249Voltaire, 62Voters for Choice, 242Voyeurism, 102, 222, 266–267

Wallace, George, 217War, rape during, 1, 28–29War crimes, 68, 77, 268–269Warshaw, Robin, 54Wartime rape, 76, 269–271Washington, Desiree, xviWatson, James, 58Weems, Charles, 216, 217Weida, Johnny, 260Weiner, Anthony, 185Weishaupt v. Commonwealth, xviWells, Ida B., xiv, 183, 190–191, 239,

271–272West Point, 260Whistleblower employees, 102White, Byron, 115White-on-black rape, 108, 190White Over Black (Jordan), 238White slaves, 162Whitman, Walt, 50Wilder, Christopher, 231Wilding, 39

Willard, Aimee, 264–265Williams, Eugene, 216, 217Williams, Tennessee, 249Winkler, Cathy, 171Wise, Kharey, 39Within Our Gates (film), 76Wolf, Naomi, 4Wolf pack, 109Woman-to-woman sexual assault, 100Women

African, 7–11battered, 21–22comfort, xiv, 46–48, 195Muslim, 28in Nigeria, 10shelters for, 136trafficking in, 251–254

Women Hating (Dworkin), 63Women’s Action Alliance, 242Women’s Christian Temperance Union,

240Women’s Rights Watch, 10Women’s Safety Project, 199–200Wonderland Club, 48Woodhull, Victoria, 81–82Woodland, Timothy, 142Workplace violence, sexual harassment

and, 229World Congress against the Commercial

Sexual Exploitation of Children, 40World War II

comfort women in, xiv, 46–48, 195rape in European Theater of Opera-

tions, xv, 270–271Wright, Andy, 216, 217Wright, Roy, 216, 217Wycherley, William, 249

Xanax, 211Xenophobic sentiments, 165Xinguano people, 86

Yanomamo raiding parties, 1Yasuhiko, Asaka, 195Yeats, W.B., 117Young-adult offenders, 93Yugoslavia

breakup of, 28tribunals for, 269

Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), 28

Zeus, 133Zimbabwe, rape in, 170

About the Editorand Contributors

CAROL J. ADAMS is an independent scholar living in Richardson, Texas. She isthe author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory(1990, 2000) and The Pornography of Meat (2003), among other publications. Shehas researched extensively on the connections between violence against women andviolence against nonhuman animals.

KWABENA O. AKURANG-PARRY, a Ghanaian poet and historian, is an assistantprofessor of African history and world history at Shippensburg University, Ship-pensburg, Pennsylvania. He is completing a book manuscript on rape in Ghanafrom the precolonial period to the present.

EMMA ALEXANDER is a research associate, Centre of South Asian Studies, Uni-versity of Cambridge, and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

OJAN ARYANFARD is a law student at the University of London and is com-pleting a master’s degree in Islam and Muslim-Christian relations at GeorgetownUniversity.

JOYCE AVRECH BERKMAN is professor of history and adjunct professor ofwomen’s studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is editing a vol-ume on the life and writings of the recently canonized Edith Stein.

MARIA BEVACQUA is associate professor and chair of the Department ofWomen’s Studies at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She is the author of Rapeon the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault (2000).

CORINNE E. BLACKMER is associate professor of English at Southern Connect-icut State University, New Haven.

296 ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

MARY BLOCK is an assistant professor of history at Valdosta State University,Valdosta, Georgia. Her dissertation was a history of rape law in nineteenth-centuryAmerica.

SHARON BLOCK is an assistant professor in the History Department at the Uni-versity of California, Irvine. She has written numerous articles on the history ofrape in early America and is completing a book on coerced sex in early America.

CHRISTINA BOREL is a graduate student in gender and cultural studies at Sim-mons College, Boston.

DOMINICA BORG is assistant professor of theater and dramaturgy at the Uni-versity of Massachusetts, Amherst.

DOROTHEA BROWDER is a doctoral candidate in women’s history, Universityof Wisconsin, Madison.

EMILIANO J. BUIS is a professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

APRIL BULLOCK is assistant professor in the Department of Liberal Studies, Cal-ifornia State University, Fullerton.

VERN L. BULLOUGH, State University of New York Distinguished ProfessorEmeritus, is author of numerous books and articles on human sexuality. He alsofounded the Center for Sex Research at California State University, Northridge.

LISA CARDYN has recently completed her doctorate in American studies at YaleUniversity. She is revising her dissertation, “Sexualized Racism/Gendered Violence:Trauma and the Body Politic in the Reconstruction South,” for publication.

ELAINE CAREY is a professor in the History Department at St. John’s University,Jamaica, New York.

CAROLYN E. COCCA is assistant professor of politics at the State University ofNew York, College at Old Westbury. She is the author of several articles aboutstatutory rape, as well as Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Laws in the UnitedStates (2004).

CHRISTOPHER CORLEY is an assistant professor of history and affiliated facultyof women’s studies at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. His research focuseson family life, childhood, and adolescence in early modern France.

BRIDGET J. CRAWFORD is an assistant professor of law at Pace University inWhite Plains, New York. She teaches in the areas of feminist legal theory, estateplanning, and taxation.

NING DE CONINCK-SMITH is an associate professor in the Department of Ed-ucational Sociology at the Danish University of Education, Copenhagen. She iswriting a textbook on the history of twentieth-century Danish childhood.

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS 297

KELLY DONAHUE-WALLACE is an assistant professor of art history at the Uni-versity of North Texas, Denton.

SHARON A. DROZDOWSKI is a graduate of the Applied Social and CommunityPsychology Master’s Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

GREGORY M. DUHL is an Abraham L. Freedman Fellow at the Temple UniversityJames E. Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia. Duhl has written on franchise law,copyright law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and affirmative action.

DINA RIPSMAN EYLON is a scholar, writer, poet, and a former instructor at theUniversity of Toronto. She is the publisher and editor of Women in Judaism: AMultidisciplinary Journal.

ROBIN E. FIELD is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at the Univer-sity of Virginia, Charlottesville. Her dissertation examines representations of rapein American literature since 1970.

MARIE M. FORTUNE is the founder and senior analyst at the FaithTrust Institutein Seattle, Washington, editor of the Journal of Religion and Abuse, and author ofSexual Violence: The Unmentionable Sin (1993), among other books.

MARGARET GIBBS, a clinical psychologist with research and clinical interests inwomen’s issues, is a professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University inTeaneck, New Jersey. In addition, she is a clinical consultant at Alternatives toDomestic Violence in Hackensack, New Jersey.

BETTY J. GLASS is associate professor and women’s studies subject specialist forthe University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.

JILL GORMAN is visiting assistant professor of philosophy and religion at RollinsCollege in Winter Park, Florida.

RUTH GRAHAM is a research associate in the School of Population and HealthSciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. She is the authorof several works on sexual assault.

DONNA COOPER GRAVES is a history professor at the University of Tennessee,Martin.

DANIEL GROSS is a student in the Clinical/Counseling Masters Program at Fair-leigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, New Jersey.

ARTHUR HOLST is an adjunct faculty member of Widener University, Chester,Pennsylvania.

LAURIE JACKLIN is a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, Canada,specializing in the history of medicine.


ELIZABETH JENNER is an independent writer living in Rochester, New York.

SHARON A. KOWALSKY is a graduate student at the University of North Car-olina at Chapel Hill.

YVES LABERGE is a film historian who holds a Ph.D. in sociology. He has pub-lished more than 200 articles and book reviews in many journals, mostly in Franceand Canada. He is a member of the scientific board for the Encyclopedia of theFrench Atlantic (2005).

TONYA MARIE LAMBERT is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Historyand Classics at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She studiesthe history of rape in the late medieval and early modern periods, focusing onEngland.

J. ROBERT LILLY is Regents Professor of Sociology at Northern Kentucky Schoolof Law, Highland Heights, Kentucky. He is the author of La Face Cachee des GI’s:Les viols commis par des soldats americains en France, en Angleterre et en Alle-magne pendant Ia Seconde Guerre mondiale (2003).

FRED LINDSEY is an assistant professor of cultural studies at John F. KennedyUniversity, Orinda, California.

MARY LINEHAN has a Ph.D. in U.S. women’s history from Notre Dame. She isfinishing a book on prostitution and public policy.

ANDREA LOWGREN is a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at the Uni-versity of California, Santa Cruz.

JENNIFER MANION is a doctoral candidate in history at Rutgers University, NewBrunswick, New Jersey. Her dissertation examines the ways gender and compulsoryheterosexuality influenced crime and prison reform during the early American re-public.

GREGORY M. MATOESIAN is associate professor in the Department of CriminalJustice at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is author of Reproducing Rape(1993) and Law and the Language of Identity (2001).

CATHERINE MAYBREY is a doctoral candidate in the History Department atLoyola University, Chicago. Her research focuses on the history of masturbation inAmerica and its relationship to the medical community and the social constructionof gender.

MARTHA MCCAUGHEY is associate professor and director of Women’s Studiesat Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, and author of Real Knock-outs: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-defense (1997).

JACKIE GRUTSCH MCKINNEY is a professor in the English Department at theUniversity of North Carolina, Greensboro.


MARLA MILLER is director of Public History at the University of Massachusetts,Amherst.

DANELLE MOON is an archivist/librarian in Manuscripts and Archives, Yale Uni-versity Library, and teaches U.S. and women’s history as an adjunct history pro-fessor at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut.

MICHELLE MORAVEC is an assistant professor of history at William PatersonUniversity of New Jersey, Wayne, where she also directs the Women’s Center.

SARA MURPHY teaches literature, cultural studies, and gender theory at the Gal-latin School of Individualized Studies of New York University. She is the author ofa forthcoming study of women’s autobiographical practice and shifting conceptionsof experience in nineteenth-century culture.

FLAVIA NELSON is a physician who works in the Department of Neurology atthe University of Houston.

CARYN E. NEUMANN is a doctoral candidate in U.S. women’s history at theOhio State University, Columbus, and a former managing editor of the Journal ofWomen’s History.

JUDSON ODELL is an independent scholar living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

JENNIFER H. PROFITT is a visiting professor at the Union Institute and Universityof Cincinnati, Ohio.

ELIZABETH R. PURDY is a political scientist and independent scholar who writesin the fields of politics and government, women’s studies, and history, among oth-ers.

SARAH L. RASMUSSON is an adjunct professor in the Women’s and GenderStudies Program at the College of New Jersey, Ewing. As a journalist her work hasappeared in a number of print and online publications.

JANICE G. RAYMOND is professor emerita of women’s studies and medical ethicsat the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is also co-executive director ofthe Coalition against Trafficking in Women, an international nongovernmental or-ganization. Her most recent book is Women as Wombs: Reproductive Freedom andthe Battle over Women’s Bodies (1994).

EMILY RIVENDELL is completing her master’s degree in women’s studies at TexasWoman’s University, Denton. She researches drug rape and sexual assault.

STEPHANIE L. SCHMID is a candidate for a juris doctorate from the Universityof California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law.

HEATHER SCHMIDT is an independent scholar and founding member of theOhio Women’s Network of Self-Defense Instructors and has worked extensively in


the antiviolence field. She is working on a book that will provide empowering safetyinformation for women travelers.

SUSANNE SCHOLZ is associate professor of religious studies at Merrimack Col-lege, North Andover, Massachusetts. Among her recent publications are Rape Plots:A Feminist Cultural Study of Genesis 34 (2002) and Biblical Studies Alternatively:An Introductory Reader (2003).

REGAN SHELTON is a graduate student in American history and women/genderstudies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is completing adoctoral dissertation on gender and violence in the South, 1870–1920.

SABINE SIELKE is chair of North American Literature and Culture and directorof the North American Studies Program at the Universitat Bonn. Her most recentpublications include Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Rape in American Literatureand Culture, 1790–1990 (2002) and Fashioning the Female Subject (1997).

ERIC SKINNER is an independent scholar and writer from the Hudson RiverValley area, New York.

MERRIL D. SMITH is an independent scholar living in National Park, New Jersey.She has authored and edited several books, including Sex without Consent: Rapeand Sexual Coercion in America (2001).

DIANE MILLER SOMMERVILLE is assistant professor of history and director ofWomen’s Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey. She isthe author of Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South (2004).

ROSE STREMLAU is a doctoral candidate in American history at the Universityof North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She specializes in Native American history.

KONRAD SZCZESNIAK is an associate professor who lectures in psycholinguis-tics, translation, and Portuguese at Silesian University, Sosnowiec, Poland.

ROSSITSA TERZIEVA-ARTEMIS is senior lecturer, Languages Department, Inter-college, Cyprus.

LANA THOMPSON a specialist in medical and forensic anthropology, has au-thored The Wandering Womb: A Cultural History of Outrageous Beliefs aboutWomen (1999).

DAVID TREVINO is a history teacher at Donna Klein Jewish Academy, Boca Ra-ton, Florida.

MARCELLA TREVINO is a history instructor at Barry University, Boynton BeachCampus, Florida.


SHONNA L. TRINCH is an assistant professor of Spanish and linguistics at FloridaState University, Tallahassee. She is the author of Latinas’ Narratives of DomesticAbuse: Discrepant Versions of Violence (2003).

JUDITH A. WATERS is a professor in the Department of Psychology at FairleighDickinson University, Madison, New Jersey. Her most recent publication is “Mov-ing on from September 11,” an overview of the symptoms and professional re-sponses to the traumatic event, which appeared in Brief Treatment and CrisisIntervention in 2002.

LINDA D. WAYNE is a doctoral candidate in women’s studies and comparativestudies in discourse and society at the University of Minnesota. She teaches in thewomen’s studies and humanities programs at the University of New Hampshire,Durham.

TRACI C. WEST is associate professor of ethics and African American studies atDrew University, Madison, New Jersey. She is the author of Wounds of the Spirit:Black Women, Violence, and Resistance Ethics (1999).

CHRISTINE CLARK ZEMLA is an instructor in the history department at RutgersUniversity, New Brunswick, New Jersey.